The Rest

Pub­lished 2009

I am sit­ting and sink­ing into the lux­u­ry of the huge com­fy bot­tle green arm­chair in my own

bed­room in my own home as I write this. I look around and I am proud. I am proud, proud of my fam­i­ly, proud of my new home, proud of my friends, proud of myself and the jour­ney I under­took to get here.

My house is sparse­ly fur­nished but it still has a com­fort­able home­ly feel. I have made it a home despite my lim­its. I have land­ed on my feet despite the step off the abyss and the long fall into an uncer­tain future. The chil­dren are hap­py.. they laugh and smile. Slow­ly the anger is leav­ing their lives to be replaced by joy, hap­pi­ness, won­der­ment, learn­ing, friends and fam­i­ly and most impor­tant­ly.. respect…

My life is once again touched by the sun and cooled by the warm sum­mer rains. My emo­tions are as calm as a trop­i­cal beach in win­ter with palm trees gen­tly sway­ing in the soft breeze. The hur­ri­canes and whirl­winds of pain, fear and tor­ment which scream blind­ly out of nowhere cre­at­ing dev­as­ta­tion and destruc­tion are out of sea­son and gone from this new life.

I smile a lot these days. I smile at nature, the beau­ty that sur­rounds me and the peo­ple who entwine my life. There is some pret­ty spe­cial peo­ple there. Some who are walk­ing with me on this jour­ney were always there. I was just too blind­ed by pain and fear to see them clear­ly. The sup­port and love I have from those peo­ple wraps me in a blan­ket of warmth that gives me the strength to car­ry it all for­ward, through­out what­ev­er life puts before me on my cho­sen path. Some who are walk­ing with me are new­er to my life and their blan­ket of warmth is just as soft as those who have always known me, the ones who have always accept­ed me as being me.

I real­ized some­thing impor­tant in those pain years. I think I always knew but the ter­ror years stamped it home for me. You only get one life. Life is change, yet once lived can­not be changed. You owe it to your­self to make it hap­py and ful­fill­ing. You owe it to nature and all which cre­at­ed you to make it the best it can be. If your house had a piece of fur­ni­ture that didn’t fit, was ugly and hor­rid or dan­ger­ous, you would take it to the dump and remove it from your home. Life is like that fur­ni­ture.

When sur­round­ed by the hor­rid and dan­ger­ous, things that make you sad then take them to the dump too and rid your life of them. Sur­round your­self with love and beau­ty. Sur­round your­self with assets not lia­bil­i­ties. Sur­round your­self in hap­pi­ness.

I can say that now with no qualms and no guilt. Do I have regrets? I will always have regrets but none are of my own guilty con­science. My soul is clean my heart is whole.

I did the best thing I could do with the tools I had at the time. I was faced with the hard­est choic­es of life and the hard­est path­ways to pick from. The path I chose was not the eas­i­est by far but the jour­ney and the vista along this path­way is the one that gets bet­ter with every step for­ward tak­en.

 

I love my life.. it rocks…and every­thing and every­one sur­round­ing me now in life makes it spe­cial ..includ­ing you all.. thank you to every­one read­ing this. Thank you for being there and shin­ing that light in my dark­est nights

 

The past is gone for­ev­er, the future is uncer­tain but the present is a gift….. trea­sure it………