Changes

So many things have changed in a year. I haven't caught up with it all.
Every quiet moment I have, my brain goes into hyper drive and tries to fit another piece into the 50,000 piece puzzle of my life.

So far, I only have the edge pieces figured out and a beginning of the first row inside the frame.

The loss of EWO (my Mother) has turned out to be a vast, endless, vacant space inside of me. A childhood schoolmate described her feeling at the loss of her parents as a sensation of floating alone in an ocean. I couldn't have described it better.

I'm trying not to be an uninhabitable island, but I find myself consumed with so many intricate emotions that I curl into myself, trying to shut out the world so I can find my feet again.

EWO delighted in mental torture of me when I was a child. She was like a child from the Lord of the Flies novel. Untamed, wild, alternating between cruel and childlike sweetness.

Half of my brain says, "Why are you grieving? Do you wish for her to be back and in your life?"

The other half chants, "I cannot believe she is gone...I cannot believe she is gone..."

I walk and feel the wind on my face and I grieve at the knowledge that she, a passionate lover of nature, no longer feels the winds wild kiss on her face. No longer hears the song of trees, rustling and bending.

And I feel like I'm floating, completely alone in the world.

But I am not alone. I know this.

MiniWarrior starts High School this Fall. Every day I am thankful for my wonderful child/man. He has not lost any of his precious sweetness. I feared for his teen years that I would lose the little boy who called me his princess. He no longer thinks of me as his princess--that title has gone to a girl who has captured his 14 year old heart. A first crush. But he never fails to tell me he loves me. He still pauses and demands hugs from him Mom. And I love him with every fiber of my being.

Lord V is my rock. The one who keeps me anchored when I feel myself floating in the ocean of grief. He wraps MiniWarrior and I up, shielding us from the harsher edges of life. I cannot imagine my life without him. I cannot imagine how I lived before him. I don't think I did. I was too busy surviving til he found us.

At the end of this month, I am retiring from my job. The notice has been written, the paperwork is in place. LV has given me the precious gift of time. Time to heal. Time to spend with MiniWarrior. Time to work with him while he moves from childhood to Manhood these final 4 years of high school.
Time to bask in the quiet peace of our home life and repair the cracks inside of me.

I have lost much. But I have gained more. Eventually the pieces of my life's puzzle will fall into place. I jut have to remember to relax and not force a piece into place.