I can do one word.
Okay. So…what is the word?
How about…
“Re-connect”?
Backstory:
The last five years have been…taxing, personally as well as globally. In 2020, there was COVID, of course, which destroyed about eighteen months of “normal life.” The husband finally retired in May of 2022. And lest we get too excited about living the stress-free life of comfortable retirees…in April of 2023, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Just as we emerged from THAT nightmare, he fell and broke his foot in April of 2024. The last almost three years of our existence have been largely dictated by facilitating HIS needs…which not only meant schlepping to medical appointments and working on treatments, but also trying to keep him active and keep his spirits up.
Fortunately, we have managed to do all those things pretty successfully. In 2025, as the disability of the cancer treatments waned, and he regained as much mobility with his foot as he is ever likely to (he can walk without a cane, he can drive, he can putter around with home improvement stuff…) the brief has been to find HIM a community of men friends, and activities that he can enjoy. And the more things he has found to be involved in, the more I have been left to my own devices.
And there-in I lies the problem.
With all the focus on him for the last several years, I have completely forgotten how to be alone. And now that I AM by myself, more than I have been in a long while, I feel sullen and peevish and lonely, and I tend to blame everybody but myself.
There was a looong period of time in my life, and in our marriage, that I was pretty much on my own. We lived a hundred miles from my family, and my husband was married to his job. I’ve never been an overly social person…never had more than one or two friends at a time, and definitely never was part of a community or social circle. Faced with being on my own, I found things to do by myself. I got involved in photography, haunted wildlife areas with my camera at the ready…even went on camping trips (and one aborted vacation) by myself. I developed a unique spiritual life that has no name or congregation. I started a blog and shared secrets with the ether, even after no one came to visit anymore.
I thought I was doing those things to keep myself busy and engaged when I had no one in my life who wanted to share them. But, you know what? It turned out I really enjoyed those things. And I miss them. In fact, I crave them. And nothing I’ve invested time and effort into for the last five years has replaced my need to have and do those things…MY things…that I have just…lost. Or almost lost.
Thus…the word. The one word I would like to guide me through this new year.
Re-connect.
To my things.
To my philosophies.
To my writing.
To the wealth I possessed when I didn’t realize how wealthy I was…
…which I intend to cinch around me like clothes of the finest gold, and luxuriate in for as long as I possibly can.
