It might be better.

I've been thinking about the future...who doesn't?!

I suppose no one can understand being truly alone, unless they experience it...frankly, I’d rather that my friends not understand me than to experience that aloneness. To live like me they would have to erase their husbands and children and grandchildren, parents, and most cousins and other ‘relations.’ They would have to dispose of all the collections of kiddie art from the refrigerator door, all the PTA meetings and bake sales, money-raisers for the band and football team, birthdays, anniversaries. And then they would have to throw out all the scrapbooks of memories of family vacations and holidays. And the graduations, and baptisms, and broken bones. There would not have been college tuition to pay, medical or law schools, or startup costs for the kids’s first business adventures. Down payment on their first houses (I hope I would not have done that!) Minus the illnesses and funerals of all the possible loved ones who come with family life and the extensions thereof.

And where would I be without all of those family gifts to my friends? I get up daily and do FB just to get to experience a family life through observing theirs.  And I thank them often for that sharing.

Where did my dreams and desires go? I was on the right track...married my college sweetheart and began to hope for the realization of the 4 children we had agreed to have. Bought our first house on a lovely street in a little town in Ohio...with the beautiful, while clapboard, tall steepeled, Methodist church directly across the street. How beautifully it was lit during the nighttime hours...a perfect picture of life...a postcard, residing across from our home. Life was good...steady involvement in the school where we taught, including an afternoon view, through my picture window, of the children walking home from school and the expected visits from some as they passed by.

It could not have been a better start...the direction well chosen...and well blessed. God walked with us, always. We taught youth at church; sponsored Christmas caroling on school buses; spent a month of weekends each spring on camping trips with the kids who chose to be in our school science fair (otherwise, most wouldn’t have!).

It couldn’t have been better...everything working out, offering more opportunities as we moved through our young and wonderful life together.

Never mind the details of his sudden illness, 16 year struggle to live, and subsequent death shortly before our 17th Anniversary. It couldn’t have been better...the spiritual leader he became...the inspiration that led so many to think of their own relationship with their God. His powerful example of fighting for a life worth living. We fought the fight and kept the faith...there was an astounding sense of ‘well done, thy faithful servant’ upon his leaving. It couldn’t have been better.

Never mind the ensuing second chance at marriage (It could have been a lot better!)...one that I suppose should not have been...people just make mistakes...and sometimes mistakes have to be corrected. 

But otherwise how would I have met a wonderful daughter and grands? I am grateful. And blessed. We have a beautiful, trusting relationship, but little contact....it’s just our way.

Starting over is a tough thing...and I’ve been called to do it twice. Alone...no personally, intimately, satisfying cords of continuity. Just a blunt cut.

Loneliness brings opportunities for new experiences...and especially when we’re young at heart, hopeful for a new future, and viably womanly, the call to love is the greatest experience a lady can ask for. He was tall, handsome, and so mysteriously loveable.  We 'wore well' together...so peaceful most of the time...until he imploded from his private burdens.  It was wonderful, but I did lose a few close friends who disapproved of the fact that I made love to my fiance...it was so natural and so beautiful and very meaningful. A matter a lot of modern people understand and would never criticize. Three years later, I still thank God for that wonderfulness in my very busy but lonely life. Sometimes, I think he saved my life. But, of course, my God did that.  The lonely make tough choices...sometimes outside their 'box.'

Life marches on ...whether it is deemed filled with emptiness or brimming with joy and fulfillment. It just is. It could be better.

I wonder if anyone who reads this is in the midst of the loneliest walk of their life? Recently widowed; divorced; unemployed; loss of a child/parent/sibling; spirit broken? There is hope. Cling to it...some days it will be your lifeline. It can get better, and for most of you, it will.

There is much to be said for starting over, especially by those who aren't doing it! ("If I was free like you, I'd....") Please don’t listen to them. With confidence, I say to you, follow your heart as never before. You have the facts, the experience, the history with your God. It’s time to act on it; to draw from the bank; to risk the loss attached to all the newness.  You'll do better than I.  I’ve lost almost everything, but my life looks like a dream...trips to exotic places, new beginnings, new friends, new, new, new. God isn’t through...there is always hope...and in my opinion, not everyone has a right to draw from the bank like the lonely...every tear turning to a silver dollar on deposit; the insecurities of gutsy decision-making like deposits in a 401 investment.  Day by day, week by week, month by month, it’s mostly just God and us. No one knows the risks we take, the 'all or nothing' kind of challenges we meet...someone with the support of a spouse could never understand. People sitting next to us at a dinner table or on a pew at church have no idea how ‘on the edge’ we're living. We hope, and even believe, it gets better.

Forward movement continues, always...on to the living of daily life...I make mine look really good, I think.

And as to the whole of it, so far, life has been good; but it could have been better. 

I guess God's not through...maybe?