Anticipation

I am filled with a sensation not familiar to me - - anticipation.  
I wonder why that is.

I am more familiar with dread. Or to brace myself. Dig in deep. Hang on. 

But anticipation evokes a more positive sensation. It's almost excitement. 

Almost.

I am beginning a new chapter of my life. Early retirement. My only poorly formed plan for how I might spend this time is about to unfold. I intend to travel. Road trips. With my dog, Zoey.

To that end, I have purchased a small cargo van that I intend to live from while on the road. I promised myself that I'd hit the road by 1st day of spring. I have campground reservations for March 22 - 25.  I'm doing it.

We are doing this.  Me and Zoey.
And the unfolding of these long laid plans has filled me with such 
anticipation. Luscious, life-affirming, terrifying and oh-so-welcome anticipation.

I have no idea what we might find or what might happen while on the road. 
And, for the first time in a long, long time, I'm okay with that.

The Dance of Anger (excerpts from book by Harriet Lerner)

subtitle: A woman's guide to changing the patterns of intimate relationships

Anger is something we feel. It exists for a reason.
Ask: What am I really angry about?

If feeling angry signals a problem, venting anger does not solve it. Venting anger may serve to maintain, and even rigidify, the old rules and patterns in a relationship, thus ensuring that change does not occur.

Those of us locked in ineffective expressions of anger suffer as deeply as those who dare not get angry at all.

We cannot make another person change his or her steps to an old dance, but if we change our own steps, the dance can no longer continue in the same predictable manner.

Many of our problems with anger occur when we choose between having a relationship and having a self. This book is about having both.

Sometimes...

Sometimes, late at night, or when I find myself suddenly awake in the middle of the night, I can feel how insignificant I am in the grand scheme of things.  It is more than a feeling, it is a knowing.  I know.  Deep in the recesses on my mind, I know that my life has no significance whatsoever.

Sometimes, when such thoughts and knowings are saturating my consciousness, I realize I am not sad.  But I do feel alone.  Terribly alone.  My sweet daughter. The man who I thought might love me. That friend I adore, or my sisters who connect me to my past...they all fall away.  And I am left alone.  So fucking alone.

Sometimes, when I accept how alone we each are in this world, and how futile is our effort to make a connection with another, I can sense my mind hurtling through space and time.  I am tumbling.  There is no place firm to land.  As I free fall, my heart races, my breath is shallow and I wonder if "this" might be it for me.  There is nothing holding me here on this side of the infinite darkness that surrounds me.  I am lost, yet found, at the same time.

Sometimes, as me and my nothingness hurl thru space and time, one of my cats will jump up on the bed and burrow in close to me.  The soft fur, the breath falls, the warmth of the cat's body...all bring me back.  I'm no longer hurtling into nothingness.  I am here.  With a soft warm purring cat lying next to me.

And sometimes, this is enough.