AUTUMN’S CARESS

Fall has arrived, and with it the Bazaar Season.

This year, there is only 1 Bazaar happening.

I’m normally a very artistic designer and crafter, but I did get the invite late (like maybe 2 weeks ago) so, I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare.

Even if I did, my enthusiasm level is at a very low spike.

Forcing enthusiasm doesn’t work for me: I either {feel} it, or I don’t.

Feeling of any nature is pretty “ify” at this point in my life.

I am trying.

I have a small cache of leftover items in bins I can use this year, but I am adding a few new things; not much, but some.

I am adding a couple plants, so I thought I’d crochet a few pot holders for them:

Crochet flower pot holders for Bazaar items. Nothing fancy, but more 'festive' than the black plastic holders.

Bazaar offerings in simple crochet pot covers.

I used to spend a lot of time designing and crafting.

But everything, anymore, happens in spurts.

And I have no idea where my life is headed – what I want to do, continue to do, or if I just want to say “bag it!” to everything, and start fresh with a whole new thing completely.

I kinda-sorta hoped I’d find out by joining clubs and groups things this year … but the demonrats went crazy with covid-rouse-house detentions, and everything has been locked tight since March.

That route has been scrambled.

Indefinitely.

I don’t like to be told what I can and cannot do by strangers, so I bucked the rules and jumped the line in the sand. I got out pretty frequently all Spring and Summer – and I am invited to Supper every other week by friends who are kind and generous to include me in their family time.

They don’t like me to be left alone – I appreciate that. They are good people. They are good friends.

But there has been no real purpose in my life for 22 months.

No sense of direction in spur-of-the-moment flights of fancy; my life is stuck on a hamster wheel I can’t seem to escape.

No direction = no enthusiasm.

I’m just going “with the flow”, hoping something {catches} and gets my motor moving a little quicker than the turtle pace I’ve been stuck in for 22 months.

Yes … I know a turtle’s pace is better than no pace … but I miss the umph my life had before.

My life has been stripped bare in 22 months.

My wounded heart has been sorely mistreated.

The slate has been wiped clean as if 44 years of my life never mattered.

Only I notice the fading smudges of the past.

Each loss carries its own brand of grief with it.

I am battle fatigued.

The shorter days and the early dusking of the season leaves me with too much time on my hands … and too many competing thoughts that send my brain into overdrive.

There are no in-house distractions to keep impish Grief from hurling my scattered thoughts into overthinking.

I’m trying to stay on top of chores.

I have to rely on hired help now for much of the ‘handy-man’ tasks.

Hired help can be tricky: it’s not always cast in stone.

Replacing hired help can be frustrating, overwhelming, and angering when you feel taken advantage of.

Ridiculously expensive.

I am not a rich widow.

I am living on a very limited budget.

Thankfully, I have good friends: have I mentioned how thankful I am for my friends?

I AM – they are the best!

A friend put me in contact with a fella that does her windows for a reasonable fee … and he has agreed to do my gutters also for a minimal tack-on price: I am scheduled for the end of November, which is workable here in the PNW here I live.

I am thankful.

Bob’s spirit must have thought I needed a good laugh, because I got one the other day.

I am still chuckling 😉

Guess Bob thought I needed a laugh today. LOL!

While I was laughing, my thoughts were triggered to the outcomes of the concept behind the laughter …

THIS – Wedding Day. August 27th, 1974

Led to this – Bob & kids. 1981

Which eventually led to grandchildren – middle granddaughter, 1996.

Fall will always mean Bob to me … we started building our life together, in the Fall; our life started ending in the Fall

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEMCeymW1Ow)

Though none of these people are in my life, or in my home, anymore (for various reasons – those who have been following my posts know the reasons): I am glad they were part of it for the span of time, they were.

Knowing and loving Bob enriched my life in ways I will never be able to articulate.

The staggering heartache cannot alter that.

I regret nothing.

I would do it all again.

Exactly the same way.

I was happy with the way my life was.

Bob was happy with our life.

I am sorry the kids were not.

I am sorry they always chose alienation – the most recent, being their fascination and involvement with gender-bender and socialism agendas.

As a mother and grandmother, I love them.

Nothing can change that.

Ever.

As a Christian, I can’t support their {ideals} because they are destructive concepts – not only to themselves; but to humanity, in general.

Only they can change that.

And they are unwilling to do so.

I can only respect their decision to cut me out of their lives – which they finalized July 1^st, 2020.

And so, this year, I am throwing myself headlong into Autumn’s caress.

Hoping with everything in me that I will be rewarded with a new life vibrant with color and filled with mutual love and contentment.

I am trusting Elohim to know where these loving hearts are in a world that has been turned on it’s ear with the unleashed hate of Hell.

I am trusting Elohim to drop at least 1 of those loving people in my life.

I am trusting myself to recognize that happening.

I am trusting myself to allow that happening to happen.

I am trusting the boundaries I have set.

I am trusting 2021 will be a very prosperous year in regards to the new life I am embarking on as a wayfaring Solo Lobo, in the autumn of my life.

As 2020 begins to wind down, to make room for the dawning of a new year, I am trusting I will learn to love my new life with all the life I have left in me.

Winter is coming.

And with it, the promise of rebirth.