Rain...

It's raining.  All the doors and windows are opened up to receive the wonderful sounds and smells that rain brings.  It's drought in California, so any rain that comes is welcome. But it brings out many different feelings in me. It's been awhile since I've written and my heart says it's time to write again.

I'm at a crossroad in my life.  I'm not sure what direction to take, what decisions to make and how to go forward.  I've got a milestone birthday coming up, and I'm at a point in my life that I'd never thought I'd be.  I've got great friends (who are actually family to me) that have given their advice and while it's welcomed, it's enough now.  It's time for me to make my own decisions and suffer the consequences, for better or for worse.

It occurs to me that I don't know love. I know the love I see in my Son, Niece's eyes.  I know love as seen through the eyes of family and friends. But I don't know love through the eyes of a partner, a lover.  I thought I did.

Being in a relationship for 24 years, you'd think you'd know love. And although there was the glimmer and the semblance, when love choses alcohol over you, well....it wasn't mine after all...was it?   The ex-boyfriend was selfish and was shirking his duties as a father.  So I knew the kind of love I wanted was absent.  He needed to stay in Iowa and I needed to stay here.

And the latest?  Well, so many unanswered questions, not enough time spent face to face.  I don't see the proof that I'm the "forever love" that he said I was.  And I'm not being given the opportunity to find out.

But I do have love of self.  At least I do now.  I know what I'm worth.  I can do this life, with or without someone, and be ok. Yes, it'll be rocky. Yes, sometimes I'll long for someone to be next to me. But I've got my Winnie the Pooh bear and a big warm bed. And I'll go to sleep listening to the sounds of the rain drops falling. And I'll be ok.