Just reflecting. Man, I am blessed!

The kids are back in school. Some of my friends have settled their kids into college dorms. The scorching August temperatures have abated into the low 90s. According to the academic calendar, fall is here.

It's one time of the year my ex is closer to the surface. This year not so much as in years past, but still he's on my mind now.

It hit me the other day that it's coming up on five years since we split up. (For those of you who don't know, we haven't seen him in 4 1/2 years. He comes close to the surface of my memory in May, too...for that reason.)

Five whole years. That's hard to believe. Within those five years I have graduated college, established a career and took fabulous trips I would not have been able to take while I was married. Through the grace of God, the kids enjoy a stability they never knew before, and I had forgotten. I have re-established friendships and created new ones. I grew closer to my kids and my family. I have a house that I am not embarrassed by, and a car I don't have to apologize for. I found a church I love and am growing in. I like myself...for the first time ever.

I really don't have anything insightful to share today. There is no need for me to recount for you the details of "the day", though every detail is burned into my memory. Nor am I trying to pat myself on the back for what I've accomplished, because I really didn't accomplish much. God has blessed us. I've only tried to do what I thought was right...one of the great freedoms of my "new" life.

I guess I'm just in a reflective mood this morning, and I needed to, in some way, put it writing.

Look how God has prospered us in five years. So, dear friends, if you see me struggling to keep my chin up now, please remind me he has brought us out of...and prospered us after...much tougher times than these.

A perspective on blessings

There are several things I'd rather do right now than sit at a computer. It's gorgeous out, the kids are gone, the washer just stopped, I'm about to start cooking a meal that will take about an hour to bake, and if I can, I'd like to fit in a walk while it's in the oven.

But this is on my mind, and every writer knows if you don't put thoughts to paper (er...computer) when you have them, you lose them forever. (Hopefully I need to write this because someone else needs to hear it. I like to think that when I share things like this, someone else can find something useful in it.)

I've been thinking about mindset and circumstances. I've been incredibly stressed out lately. I don't feel comfortable going into all the gory details, but suffice it to say there's way too much month left at the end of the money lately.

It feels all too familiar. Deep down on a cellular level, I remember the days of walking to the store with $4 in my pocket to buy supper for that night and lunch the next day. I remember the meter reader patiently waiting to cut off my electricity while I desperately walked to a neighbor's to call my husband to pay it, and he couldn't. I remember going to Ryan's for dinner and leaving the water bill to wait for another day....and that day usually being a week after the due date. I remember selling our only vehicle to pay the rent.

Some days, I feel like I'm there again. Money is not always a conscious thought, but it is always, always, always in the back of my mind. These are the times when counting my blessings becomes hugely important. But I forget to.

I can't immediately change my circumstances, but I can change how I look at them. I have a nice house. It's not fancy, but I sure don't mind having company. That's something I have not always been able to say. The bills are paid on time and in full every month...I never even see the meter reader, let alone know his name. I have a closet full of clothes. Nice ones, too. Once upon a time, I mostly wore my husband's T-shirts. I have a kitchen full of food, gas in the car, and I have not once run out of either. (Let me interject here...God has taken care of us by providing us with family and friends who support us. I can never count my blessings without remembering that and being thankful for it above everything except His salvation.) We are warm in the winter and cool in the summer. My children are stable and happy.

In other words, God meets all of our needs. Without fail.

And if I look at it that way, I find what frustrates me the most isn't that I don't make enough to support us. I do. What frustrates me is that I don't have enough to do the things I want to do. That puts a whole new spin on things, doesn't it? When I think of it like that, suddenly stressing about money makes me feel like I'm a 2-year-old having a temper tantrum because I can't have a lollipop.

So on that note, I'm now going to go cook a fantastic meal for my children, because I can and I want to.

Singlehood: Life is good

Before I left my husband for the last time, I made up my mind I wanted to be happy by myself before I got involved in another relationship. When I met him, I thought I needed a man to be happy.

This summer will make five years since I left him. I'm really glad I have taken the time I have. It gives you perspective you can't have while you're still hurting.

I'm very happy with my life. It took me a really long time to get here, though. I had to get over more than just my husband. I was over him years before I finally make the break, but there was a lot of damage that needed to heal. I had completely lost myself, and I needed to be restored.
This singlehood thing has been on my mind a lot lately. Not because I'm anxious to change it, but I think because we're getting ready to start a study in small groups on Ruth. I've been reading a different book about her, and the story centers on widowhood and barrenness and what it means to be a woman. In those days, you were nothing without a man. Your father took care of you until your husband assumed the responsibility. If you didn't have a husband, God help you.

It's not like that anymore, but I think it's in our genetic makeup to be paired up. And society still tells us that something is wrong if we're single for too long. I also think some people are just constantly searching for companionship because they just don't know any other way to be, and they're afraid to be alone.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 8 that it is better to be single, and I think I understand why. When you let go of this worry, this fear that you'll never find another mate, you're free. You're no longer torturing yourself, and you're free to just work on healing. 

You're free to focus on your children, your job, your friends, your family. You're free to figure out what you want for the rest of your life. I mean, think of all the things you can do! And there's nobody to tell you you can't. You're free to stop and smell the roses. Take an extra three hours to get to a destination (provided no one is waiting for you) so you can investigate a curiosity along the way.

You're free to give away anything you choose to someone who needs it more. You're free to join the mission field in Cambodia, if that's where God is leading you. And there's no spouse's job to take into consideration. There is an absolute freedom to do His will that you won't find as a married person,when there are dual careers and mortgages to worry over.

Most importantly, you're free to focus your attentions on building your relationship with God. The time that isn't spent fighting with a mate can be spent peacefully reading the Bible. During the final days of your marriage (or relationship), the turmoil that kept your stomach in knots also kept your brain distracted from the good things in life. Now you're free to see and enjoy those things.

It's scary at first. I remember sitting in my lawyer's office one day when she told me it had taken her 19 years to find her current husband. Her happiness radiates from her face. But I thought, "19 years??" That had to be the worst thing I'd ever heard!

But in dating now...the men I choose to spend time with are men whose company I truly enjoy. One of the greatest freedoms I have is the freedom to say "No" to anyone that I feel is disrespectful to me or my children. Because I have learned to enjoy sitting at a dinner table by myself, I don't have to find just any ol' warm body to fill that space. I don't have to settle.

Understand, I'm not saying I don't ever want to get married. But I don't have a boyfriend at the moment. What I am saying is I can choose to focus on remedying that situation -- viewing it as a major shortcoming of mine -- or I can choose to see this fact as an advantage and focus instead on the things in my life that give me joy. I choose the latter. One day I will be 97 years old and sitting in my rocking chair. If Mr. Right never shows up, I will still look back on my life and say, It was good.

My heart goes out to Japan

Tonight the kids and I were watching this video of the first wave of the Tsunami coming ashore. Catie watched it in class today. I happened upon it. Christopher watched it for the first time tonight with us. His reaction: "The cars look like some kid threw a whole bunch of Matchbox cars into a creek or something."

In the very beginning, when the video pans to the parking lot, if you look really closely you can see a man running next to the buildings. Christopher wanted to know why there were people standing on an upper level balcony taping it instead of running to save their lives. I want to know if any of them made it out alive. I want to know if they had enough warning.

Thousands have died, but the survivors are really suffering. This article says they're grieving and starving. Can you imagine the fear they must still be living under? Every breath has to be a struggle. If I feel helpless watching their homes and cars...their entire lives...being swept out to sea, and reading about how they can't find their family, how much more helpless must they feel? My children are down the hall. I'm reasonably certain my parents are safely in their own homes. Tonight I'm climbing into a nice warm bed. My belly's full and I will sleep well. Tomorrow I will wake up, bemoan the fact that I didn't get to sleep longer, get into my little car that was made in this now-desperate country and drive to work, singing at the top of my lungs. I will laugh with my co-workers, complain about some petty thing or another, and this devastation will be almost as many miles from my thoughts as it is from my person. And then someone will mention Japan and I will remember, utter a silent prayer, and again feel very small and helpless. What can I do in the face of such loss?

I watch all these videos and read these articles, and I think you know, we could be next. We're not safe. If not a tsunami, a tornado. Oh yes they happen here. If not a tsunami, what's to say an earthquake won't hit near Augusta. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it couldn't.

It reminds me just how small we really are. It makes me stop and wonder what it's all for, all this working our lives away to buy bigger and better homes, cars, technology. To one-up the Joneses. So that people will look up to us. Respect us. What is that prestige when we're all -- millionaires and paupers -- huddled together, shivering, soaking wet in an abandoned building somewhere, eating dried Ramen noodles to keep alive. Even if we could afford million dollar homes, they look the same as shanty shacks floating in the ocean.

I want to buy a house of my own one day. Why? For security, I always said. So that once it's paid for, nobody can ever come take away the roof over my head. But if I spend a quarter of my earnings over the course of my lifetime on it, will it last? Maybe for as long as I'm alive. Or maybe not. I'm starting to think these things aren't what we should be spending our money on. Yes, we need shelter. But does it have to be 4,500 square feet for just two people? Do we really need that much space? Do we really need to drive a gas-guzzling Hummer? Especially when people are hungry. What if we all aspired to modest housing, to spending the money God entrusts to us on just what we need and spending the rest to meet another's needs (those that can't do it for themselves.) And that would be needs... you know, food, clothing, shelter, water, air. Not cell phones, Lexuses and 52-inch big screens. (And since a lot of that stuff came from Japan, I'm betting they just got more luxurious.)

I don't know, ya'll. Right now I'm tired, which gets my thoughts churning, and every time I see something new come out of this disaster I'm just heartsick about the people there who are just fighting to stay alive. If I had millions, I would take jetfuls of food and clean water to them. I hate to see people go hungry. As it is, all I can do is find a charity to give a few dollars to and pray. I really hope that helps.

Trash and treasure

Yesterday's post about Tupperware got me to thinking. My kids are going to be so rich one day. When I'm dead and gone, they will be finding all sorts of treasures in the attic and in my closets. I don't know, though. The windfall could just add up to 23 cents. Don't spend it all in one place!

Yes, I'm a packrat. Worse, I have a sentimental attachment to stuff. You're not going to see me on an upcoming episode of Hoarders...I do value my floor space more than, say, the two TVs currently taking up a chunk of it in my bedroom. But if a thing has any inkling of sentimental value, it's mine and I will make it work.

Take for instance my living room furniture. This stuff is more than 20 years old. Every bit of it. It was all handed down, some before my divorce and some to help me furnish my own place afterward.

My couches belonged to an aunt. I think she bought them new in the '80s. Obviously she took good care of them. My coffee and end tables were my Nanny's. My sister, my cousins and I used to spend hours poring over the photo albums Nanny kept in them. We didn't know half the relatives we saw, but we loved looking at pictures of our parents when they were young, and baby pictures of ourselves. The table tops have warped a little over the years from sweating cups, and I've been debating about painting them. Whenever I'm at other people's houses, I often admire their newer coffee tables. But I just love mine.

I have other stuff, too. An entertainment center my mom and stepdad bought almost 30 years ago. A dinette set from my dad and stepmom, bought when I was 15. A desk that belonged to my stepmom's father. I have no idea how old it is, but judging from the hardware, I'm going with mid-'70s. Maybe even '60s. Vintage stuff, no?

I can't quite decide if all of this makes my place look dated, so I keep threatening to buy slipcovers and paint the furniture. I haven't yet been able to make myself shell out the couple hundred dollars for the slipcovers I really want (and I waffle on the color), and I'm a little afraid of tackling the painting. Will it ruin it? Will those tables still seem like Nanny's tables? Right now, I look around at my old stuff and see love and family. It's comforting.

Anyway, not only am I a sentimental fool, but I am a child of the '80s and proud of it. I wanted so bad to go to a John Hughes high school (I was in elementary school until '89) and be Molly Ringwald. So I jumped when my brother-in-law offered me his old Atari. Still works. He threw in the Sega, too. I'm ecstatic to be the proud owner of such a treasure. I even have PacMan, Freeway, Donkey Kong, E.T. and Asteroids and Sonic the Hedgehog! Other people, though, are somewhat unimpressed. I always expect a "Cool! Can I come over and play it?" Yeah...nobody does that. They haven't since the '80s. And that was me, because I didn't own an Atari. One day it will be cool again. I have faith. For now, it collects dust in a drawer.

I dunno. Maybe I will be on Hoarders one day. I think this is the very attitude they try to break!

Money is the root of all

This morning I spent a little time playing around with my blog settings. Geez. I just want to write! But I also want to hear what you have to say. I was kind of discourged to learn that the site required you to sign into in order to comment. But now I've fixed it (I hope), and that makes me happy. So talk to me!

And now back to our regularly scheduled blogging, already in progress...

Reading back over my posts the other day, I noticed a common theme. Money. Or rather, the lack thereof. I wasn't happy about that. I don't consider myself a materialistic person. Not at all. I want good things in life like everybody else, but they don't need to be the finer things. I don't even mind if the good things are worn at the seams a little, as long as it doesn't show. I don't think I'm engaged in a chasing a bigger bank account. (What would I do with a Jaguar, anyway? Oh...sell it and buy a house!) But what I saw was that virtually everything I've said, in some way spoke about money...and the fact that I don't have much of it. I worried -- in true me fashion -- that it makes me seem obsessed, or that I'm poor-mouthing myself.

The truth of it is, I really don't mind my situation so much. I won't go into a whole lot of detail here -- maybe I can share some stuff later -- but we have more of the good things in life and are more stable as a single parent household than we ever did as a two-parent household. I wouldn't change the way things are. Every need or want that I'm able to meet on my own that is beyond the usual feels fantastic. There's a terrific sense of accomplishment. And my kids understand. It's one of the things that makes them so awesome. They don't ask for much, and they recognize when we're able to do something extra. They make it a point to genuinely thank me for it. Then they appreciate the heck out of it.

So I said to myself (I talk to myself a lot), "Find something to write about that doesn't have to do with money." There has to be other aspects about single parenting that people can relate to that aren't centered around finances.

And then my mind went blank. I can't separate it out. Like, if I look in the mirror and my hair is starting to resemble Pepe LePew, whether or not a put on a hat and run to the store or pull it back in a ponytail and say "it's not so bad" depends on my checking account balance. It also determines how I do karaoke: whether I eat dinner at the restaurant, eat a hot dog at home and have one beer at the restaurant or just drink water. (Yes, I've done that.) Or whether or not the kids go skating or we have a family movie night. Or whether they have apples for an after school snack or cookies.

Meeting my family's needs and desires with what I have is what my single parenting experience is about. This is my challenge. Yours may be something entirely different. If I try to divorce the financial aspect from the rest of it, my single parenting story will not be authentic. It would be phony and not at all enjoyable to read or write. That would be a shame, because my hope for this blog is that somewhere out there, a single mom at her wit's and checkbook's end will find something useful in my story, even if it's just to see that someone somewhere understands.