Serendipity

If you'd asked me a few years ago if I could stand being by myself, I probably would have replied "No". In fact, I have never in all my adult years lived by myself or at least spent most of my time alone. I've always had someone there, a husband/significant other or other family member, so I was never really  alone.  Since moving here, I have learned to enjoy the alone time...even for days at a time.  I have gone through stages though to get to this point.  The first stage was a deep loneliness, and with it came a round of depression almost as deep. The next stage was one of keeping myself busy with making my crochet items for my shop on Etsy . If I kept my mind and hands busy I couldn't think. The next stage I really began to enjoy the quiet and the ease of not having anyone to be here with me. I could do what I wanted, when I wanted and how I wanted. Pretty sad to come to this point as a 59 year old woman! LOL In all honesty, I am glad that I have com...

farms across the valley from me now The summer of my 16th year, after the death of my mom some four months earlier, I entered into a period of having long bouts of insomnia. Be it from depression or something else...maybe grief...or maybe both. I only know that I couldn't sleep at night...and never was able to get to sleep until the wee hours of morning. I couldn't sleep, no matter how I tried. I was very restless...and feeling very lonely...to the point that I had to get up and do "something".   And since my dad, brother and sister were sleeping, I didn't want to wake them by finding something inside the house to do, so I would take my Cocker Spaniel, Leo with me and go for walks...sometimes lasting until 1 or 2 in the morning. The farm--meaning the houses and buildings--was nestled into a little valley between two gentle hills. My home was nearly in the middle between those hills, but I always chose to go what we considered 'up' the hill closes...

Most of us go through our daily lives not thinking about much beyond that which we are familiar with on a daily basis, yet every once in a while we are directed to something that we know is there but we keep hidden in the back of our minds. I am just as guilty of doing the same. In 1990, I wrote a poem which is heart-breaking yet just as relevant today as it was then...about a child who was unwanted, abused and finally run away. I named him: "Disappointment" because a single word can relay so much hurt and anger, loss and loneliness. A Child Named 'Disappointment' He walks with head bent Against a cold insistent wind, His shoulders are pulled forward  In an effort known as defeat. He struggles with his emotions, Humiliation and loneliness: unwanted friends, Never sparing him more than a glimpse  Of life as it could be...should be. Disappointment is his only name, Born with him, beaten into him By a cruel, drunken father, Nev...