The birth of a new mantra

Think:  who am I BEING with my life?

And make a list

There are things that no one puts on that list…we don’t say “I want to be…”

1.       A widow

2.       A single parent

3.       A welfare recipient

4.       A drug addict

5.       An abuser

And yet, here we are

So we have to make another list

And put on it the better things.  Can we find a step up?

Think about

How you want to be remembered.

Where, on that list, can I put down

That I want to be the woman who was wanted?

Does “other woman” work somehow, if I care about him

And accept that he loves his wife

And don’t actually see him in real life?

Where should I list “desperate for love and connection”?

If I’m being honest, in that frightful way that I have, that is a large part of who I am

How I have spent my life

And I know that others remember me that way

Through a lens of disgust and disappointed judgement.

When my husband died, I went insane for a while

Functionally insane, for the most part.  I could still do stuff.  Most stuff.

But still

I went down paths that I’d never have dreamed of walking

And I danced there.  I sat down a while.  I probably took my clothes off.

So.  Who am I BEING with my life?

I’m a mother.  A teacher.  A widow.  A slut.  A friend.  A talker.

A singer.  A reader.  A writer.  A dog lover.  A cat lover.  A comic book movie and tv show fan.

I’m a woman afraid of trying and afraid of giving up.  I’m a walking hunk of cognitive dissonance

Too jaded to be foolish, too naïve to be safe

I’m certainly being me.  ME.  Not trying to be anyone else.

I often say that I want to be different people when I grow up, when I see

Someone acting in a way I admire…but I am not so good at emulation.

Antithesis I can manage…watch what is done and do not what you see

Do, in fact, the farthest thing from observed behavior.  Check.

Other than that, my ME hat has been worn forever…all guises left along the road side

But I find myself, as a widow,

Spinning in infinity

Willing to lay my love down

Soft

Sweet

Sliding in sideways

Till I noticed…there is no one there

To offer it to…

And really, I need to stop trying that.  So now I say to myself

“I am alone, and I accept that”

And it is terrifying.

Because it’s my only choice:  I must accept the things I cannot change

And find a way to filter the sunlight through the rest.