Life is Made up Of Moments

Not sure if you've noticed but I changed the front page of my blog.  I started to question why I would do that now?  Is it part of some "process."  The original blog had a quilt around it and in the center was a picture of Eric and me.  I've changed it to a picture of a tree in front of my (do I say mine or ours?) home in the summer when everything is blooming.  The title also was going to change to "I am curious...about my life's journey.  But, because I couldn't find a font and a color I liked I settled on the old and reliable.

It kinda feels like people think there's a "your husband/father of your kids died manual.  There isn't.  Similar to how there isn't a "how to raise a kid" so they're not a "fuck up" when they grow up manual.  I can see em com in' up the pike as we speak.

Life is made up of moments.

Life is made up of One Moment At a Time

I learned that phrase this week.  I like it.  It's simple.  It doesn't speak to what type of moments they are.  Whether they're good or bad....long or short...sad or happy.

They are just moments.  As a matter of fact, moments have to happen.   We are people, we are not movies that we are watching.  That we can pause on a DVR or Tivo or a DVD for that matter.   This is actually real life, real experiences.  

I am guilty of trying so hard to navigate, figure out and plot out a new journey for my family.  Often I'm missing the moments I should be experiencing.  Sometimes it feels like I've missed whole days.  

There are important decisions to be made.  Decisions I made as a we for the last 12 years, I now make as a me.  However, I don't have to make EVERY decision RIGHT now.  Take it slowly, research, understand and then pull the trigger.

The moments I am now living are far less horrible than the moments I recently lived.  So much pain, sadness, sickness, fighting, and fighting death are now different moments.  The pain, sickness, fighting, and fighting death are gone.  Just like that at 5:50pm January 21, 2012 all of that just ended.   It is the sadness that continues.

Thinking about what I'm writing I guess I changed the front of the blog because my life has changed a little.  The Comfort Quilt is still a project I am working on.  However, it is not all that I am.  I am not only a widow.  I am not only a single mother.  I am not only a person incapable of mowing a lawn. 

I am a teacher to my children.

I am an ear for my friends.

I am a listener of wisdom.

I am able to call when I need help.
I have a wonderful family

I know understand that my moments are finite.

Am I becoming more of an "I" than a "we."  It has nothing to do with "too soon."  Or, you should be acting "more pathetic."  It is about at any moment it could be my last moment, so what do I wait for?  Some kind of a sign, or do I wait to experience moments when people tell me it's o.k. to start again?

You know when you buy a white car and then you notice every other jack off bought a white car too.  Well, I believe it's just that now you notice the white cars that drive next to you.  Well, now I notice just how many people are my age or younger are just dropping dead.  Cancer, heart attack, etc.. It's as if death is trying to steal my ability to live one moment at a time.  As if I'm just coasting through life and not even paying attention.

I'm going to pay attention to each moment from now on.  It doesn't have to be "good" or "pleasant"  It just has to be another moment.  My children ask me multiple times a day.  "Can't we just get one more moment with dad?"  I give them the, your dad is always with you, talk.  They always say, "I know but I want a moment when he's really here."

Life is made up of moments.  When you are dying you don't talk about the things you didn't do - you talk about the moments you had, the moments you didn't have, the moments you wished you had had. Enjoy this moment.  And I mean it.  Wherever you are take a moment to realize that this moment is so important.

I love you,

Alyce