Author: Irene Page 25 of 44
For most people, December 31 is a time to reflect on the events in their lives and look forward to what lies ahead. Some participate in making New Year’s resolutions and make goals to do better and be better in the new year. I’ve never participated in these events. I believe if you discover a change in life is needed, do it in that moment rather than wait until some apportioned time set by society.
Since 2017, my new year has been set to November 9. On that day, everything changed. It was the day something broke inside of me, but I do not view it as a bad thing. Over the past year, I have made significant changes in my life, which have helped me to grow as a person and allowed me to start down a path I have chosen rather than settling for the circumstances life threw at me.
There have been a variety of thoughts bouncing around in my mind for some time now. I’ve worked on fleshing them out into a full post, but none have worked out the way in which I wanted them to. Instead of just having them float around in my mind never to see the light of day, I gathered them together to create a bit of an homage to “Meditations,” Marcus Aurelius.
The book has had more of an impact on me than I thought it would and I think this is the best way to put my thoughts to rest and present what’s been rumbling around in my head for the past few months.
Even though I was there for an article for the Star-Herald newspaper, Barb Schlothauer and her fellow Soroptimists convinced me to help them make May baskets in 2018. It was still chilly enough at the end of April for me to be wearing my green sweater.
Anyone who has seen me during winter for the last three decades has likely seen me wearing my green sweater. Shortly after moving out of the dorms at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and into my first apartment, I had a conversation with my grandmother about being cold. I was on a budget and heat wasn’t high on my list of priorities. Gram wondered if I couldn’t afford to turn the heat up, why didn’t I wear a sweater. I didn’t have one. I didn’t have the money to buy one.
By the time I left her house in Middletown, New York, I had a pocket full of cash to buy a sweater of my choosing. It took months to find a sweater I liked.
There was still a little bit of light outside. I suspect in a week or two, it will be dark outside at 6 p.m. Fall is in full swing and winter is nipping at the edges of the day, anxious to arrive and take over. The temperature was in the mid-forties. I parked my car in the empty K-Mart parking lot, got out and dialed her number.
I sat on the cold, concrete parking bumper. The chill instantly went through my blue jeans. I was shaking, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of the cold or everything else.
She answered on the fourth ring.
For the past year, I have been listening to music with no lyrics because I couldn’t take the unintended triggers music I like was causing me. I made a new playlist today. If it doesn’t work, I will go back to the nice playlist a pirate friend of mine made.
Here is the top of my desk, nice and neat. Maybe I can get some work done now.
Over the past year, Paul and I have made many changes, which we put off for far too long. We have begun purging our home of stuff that we no longer need or never needed in the first place. We’ve eliminated clutter – physical and mental – that have bogged us down for so long.