This New Season

 

In March, as I worked through big emotions and sorrow, I wrote out the posts and pre-scheduled them to publish.  I finished them a week before John died.   Since then, I've been doing a lot of writing.  The two posts published on this blog and on Blue House Journal about John's passing, posts for April, in my journal.

Writing being the cathartic exercise that it always has been for me; I'm finding my way as I go into this new season of life alone mostly by writing, not by word or book.  I don't know what it is I feel.  I'm having to stop and exam it as I go.  

I think, if I look through the telescope back to last summer when I went to keep the boys for Katie, that everything in my life was leading up to this new season, preparing me for what was ahead.  I was always attached to John's hip and he to mine.  I began branching out and becoming more and more independent.  I'd begun to recall the things I loved most and adding them back into my life one by one.  I see now the irony that each of those things was something I do solo...without John.  Yet, John applauded me every step of the way. He encouraged and helped me in everything I attempted to do.  

The only area he felt unhappy about was Artist's Dates on my own.  And that I resolved by declaring I just wanted to do them at home, by diving into jigsaws, reading, junk journaling, doodling and coloring...I was far happier with those kinds of Artist's Dates.  Will I now explore having an Artist Date as the author described?  I don't know yet.  I'm feeling my way along in all areas, not just with emotions.

Often, I've chosen artwork for this blog that featured a lone female.  When I met John, I had the loveliest art in my home, all of which featured lone women.  Gradually I replaced them, helped along by the fact that they all began to look hopelessly dated, but I'll confess, John often said that he was bothered by that lone female in all those pictures.  Each time I'd choose a piece of art to go with a post here, I'd think, John would hate this lone woman thing...But I used them to represent the fact that this new season of life was mine, not a shared journey I was making with him, though he was present in it every step of the way, celebrating each new thing I took up and applauding and praising the least efforts I made.  Not knowing of course that a lone female was what I was about to be.  

So here I am.  This truly is the Fresh New Season of my life.    I have no idea what it will hold.  But I am ready to go for it.  And I know that John is right there cheering me on.