OK Universe Your Scaring Me!

I am a very lucky, frightened woman.

I am lucky because I have no doubt in my mind that Randy loves me deeply.  Part of it is from our past, part of it is from our hours and hours we have spent on the phone since April 17.  

I have agreed to be open to giving him a chance to come back into my life.  SCARY!

Randy wants to take full advantage of the second chance God had given him to have me in his life and believes our relationship will be much better if he moves to Texas.  At this time he is looking for a job, so it would make sense for him to look for a job here instead of where he lives. He said it might take him a while, but I would need to be open to the idea. 

Of course I am open to him moving here vs be moving there.  I could keep the oasis and the safety net of my family and friends.  I haven't really been concerned about any move because I thought I had plenty of time to get used to the idea of Randy being where he would be a physical presence in my life and not just a voice on the phone.  

Plus Randy doesn't have a car. I keep explaining to him he cannot live here without a car. He currently lives where he can take public transportation just about any where he needs to go. In fact the bus stop is right outside his door.  I told him that if he lived here he would need a car to take him to the bus or train station.  Therefore the plan was he would get a job, save, get a car, and then if he still wanted to be here with me, we would move forward with him moving. I was good with this, we figured a year or two to get to that point.

In comes the universe! Randy has a really nice guy as a roommate named Mark.  In fact, if it hadn't been for Mark helping technophobe Randy get on Facebook, there would be no discussions between Randy and me.  Randy and Mark have conversations about their relationships since Mark is in a long distance relationship with a woman in Oregon.  In their conversation yesterday Mark offered to sell Randy his car.  WHAT! 

Last night Randy was online looking for jobs in this area and trying to decide how he could get all his musical equipment here since Mark says he could just leave his furniture.  WHAT!  

After breathing for a while I decided not to scream NO, TOO SCARY, and let the universe continue to plug along with its plan.  

I told Randy that if he moved here it was all on him and not on me in any way.  I am not asking him to move here, I am not making any commitment to him, etc.  He said he understands but he is not missing this chance God gave him.  

So OK universe you are scaring me to the point I can't breathe at times, but I will continue to be listen and be open. 

Because I Didn't Have To

I am a caretaker.  Any time I take any personality or career type test the results always involve a caretaker type role.  

The past few years people have been telling me I need to take care of myself.  I always shrug it off and say "I will, I will."

Since I have been having all these long conversations with Randy, he has really been talking to me about taking better care of myself.  The more he has talked about it, the more I have thought about it.  

I think I have figured it out.

I don't take care of me, because I never had to take care of me.  

Once I graduated high school I continued to live with my parents, but I had a job, enrolled myself in college, and ran my life.  We had a great family life, but I didn't require my parents to take care of me, but I only took care of myself in the basic ways because heck I was young and invincible.

Then I married Raymond.  The first few years of our marriage we took care of each other, but we were also so busy with our jobs, saving for our future, young married life, and we cared for each other but were pretty independent too.

Then life became a little busier. We had the boys, my dad was ill, my mom was stressed, and I was running around taking care of everyone because that is what I do, and I didn't have time to worry about taking care of myself.  I didn't need to take care of myself, Raymond took care of me.  He took great care of me all the time, in every way, allowing me to take care of the ones that couldn't take care of themselves.

Since Raymond died, I have continued to take care of others, but I never added myself back into the queue. 

I had all those years of not taking care of myself because I didn't have to thanks to Raymond.Now I realize I need to start taking care of myself, especially if I am going to try to have any type of relationship with Randy or anyone else. 

My Front Yard

May 2, 2012
Texas dandelions blooming in the morning.

View from the street looking towards the house.

Paralysis by Over Analysis

Yesterday at work I went into a panic mode.

I emailed Loni and told her I could not do this.  I wanted back in my bubble.  

I also sent Randy a text and told him I was freaking out it was too much.  

Randy told me to go to the Serenity Prayer.

Loni sent me a wonderful email that let me come back down to a level of panic I could handle.  

Last night Randy told me I needed to breathe and that I needed to remember when I had a moment of total freak out that I was living my life by paralysis by over analysis. He asked me to try to enjoy my life at the moment instead of trying to plan out every moment coming.  He also said he knew that would be one of the hardest things for me to do.

Today, I going to live my Loni's advice:

Breathe in

Breathe out

The sun is warm

The grass is green

It will all be okay

(The Next Karate Kid: Sergeant Kesuke Miyagi ~ The sun is warm the grass is green)

Will I Color My World?

Several friends have commented on how different I look and sound since Randy has come back in my life.  One said my laughter seemed to have life to it.  One of the ladies that came by my office yesterday asked me what I had done to change my appearance because she couldn't figure out why I looked so different.  

I recently moved my art work around in my house.  I moved this painting to just outside my bathroom door in the hall.  It is what I see when I exit the bathroom.  Since 2008 it has been down by my oldest's bedroom and I haven't really looked at it in all those years.

By Wesley Holderby

 The other day as I walked by this painting it caught my eye and I really stopped to look at it.  As I looked at the different elements in this piece, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization of how much this art work represented my life.  I have been the man on the left. Sitting back and looking at a world that was truly colorless to me.  What had brought color and joy to me was gone and while I could see the beauty around me it never really went to my core.  Since Randy has come back in my life, I feel a little color coming back.  I just need to put my hand out and let it wash over me and see what happens.

So here I am, the man on the right with my hand out.  Will I let the color drop down, or will I pull my hand back?

I Can't Fix It!

I am currently under a lot of stress. 

There are some major issues going on in the work area of my life and people seem to think I can come up with the answers that will fix everything.  Well I can't.

I did not cause the problems, and I cannot fix the problems.  That is my mantra lately.  I must say it 1,000 times a day. Why doesn't anyone believe me?  

Not Getting Much Done

I am not getting much done around the house these days.  It is hard to clean or quilt when you are acting like a school girl and talking on the phone all the time.  

Randy and I are not dong the "you hang up, no you hang up" act but we do have trouble limiting how long we talk.  We start off with good intentions saying that the conversation will end at ___hour, but we never hang up at that hour.  

I cannot believe how much we talk about.  It is some of the best conversation I have had in years.  Then there is the music.  Last night he was playing music to me he had recorded.  I have always loved his singing voice.  Unfortunately, he has lost a lot of range in the last few years due to asthma but he can still sing and his bass playing is better than ever.  

I keep thinking the shiny will wear off and we will get down to just a few minutes of phone time a night, but that doesn't look like it will happen any time soon.  

I guess the house will just have to be a mess for a while.