September 15 .... grateful

I'm whooped. Honey and I are going through a process. In the end it will be great. We will find each other, know each other, love each other - and really, I've grateful for that. You don't invest 21 years of your life somewhere and then blow it off right? Right!

So I'm grateful for perseverance, grateful for strength, grateful for commitment, patience and caring. I'm grateful for the courage this journey requires, grateful for healing .... Grateful.

August 23 ... perseverance and persistence...

I imagine that the fact that Honey and I have been sailing some pretty stormy seas seems pretty obvious from my posts of late. It's been hard, on both of us. Neither one of us having an clear idea of what is causing the malaise, the distancing, the sadness and loneliness that has been growing like a bad weed between us. After 20 and half years... it seems you really do have to work at things sometimes to keep them floating, growing, nurturing.

We talked again. I feel like we pierced something last night, that some important truth surfaced, made things understandable. Where to go from here? We don't really know, but fortunately it feels like a "we" again - however tenuous, fragile, unsure ... it's a "we".

I'm not sure if it's the specter of mid-life, the realization of time left, the experience of crossing things off your list because you know or believe you won't get to them, existential stuff... there is a deep and heavy sadness that lives among us - and "we" are going to figure this out. We are. I'm not going anywhere.

February 28 .... authenticity

Today, I find myself struggling with authenticity. Especially here. I got some wonderful and valuable feedback about what I share in this space from several of you. What I have heard has been echoing my own sentiments. So I'm conflicted, but I'm learning. My intention was to reflect on gratitude, daily, for a year. Because I am stubborn, I will hold myself to this task. But maybe the "task" is not to necessarily "be" grateful - so I don't have to make stuff up, or pretend that I'm grateful for I don't know - let's say an Olympic Gold in Hockey... that's not what I want to be grateful for. Am I making any sense? The task is to reflect .. and if that reflection doesn't bring up something I might find myself grateful for .. well that says something in and of itself, doesn't it?

So with an open, honest heart I say to you... I am really grateful for the connections and relationships I have where the people that love me are open, honest, invested in me and I in them. That we can exchange without threat or malice, instead with love and good intention, with a wish for growth. That we can offer each other the room to be different one from the other and appreciate that, and learn from it. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm here here - in this marriage, in these friendships, in this blog.