So Many Plans!

I am still alive, for those who may be wondering. I got lazy, then I got busy, then I got lazy again. That is usually what happens when I try to get too ambitious about things I want to do with my blog, or any other project for that matter. But, here I am, back at it and hoping to do at least a little better this year than in the last.

For an update on the Arizona story, I flew back out to Arizona and about ten minutes after my sister and her significant other picked me up at the airport and we were in line at the exit for Tuscon (in very heavy evening traffic, by the way) my sister's cell phone rang and it was the Cochise County Sheriff's Office calling to cancel the search due to a scheduling glitch! Her boyfriend pulled us out of that line of traffic so fast we both knew he was making only a token effort at interest in our grandmother's current whereabouts, but we forgave him over a very nice meal and comfy beds at a much earlier hour than we had all originally anticipated. It was a nice little vacation after my initial vacation, but I did not plan on going out yet again in December at the newly rescheduled time, which was just as well because THAT was also canceled due to unusually inclement weather conditions and may, finally, take place in February - maybe. My sister will let me know what's happening as soon as she finds out.

We also had a very nice holiday season, given the circumstances of our last several holiday seasons prior to this one, and I actually managed to get just about everything wrapped and delivered on time with only a very few exceptions. For me this is stupendous! However, now in the new year, we are awaiting tests and the results for another family member (other than myself) to see if they have anything ultra-wrong going on with their health (damn!). We are all still here and still together, those of us left, and we continue on with life and loving despite our multitude of setbacks and losses over the past several years. This year definitely was better!

It was also good to hear from an old friend who I met more than thirty years ago and who has, in that time has gotten married, given birth to - and then raised - five children, and still manages, with the help of her spouse, to send out a yearly Christmas letter and photograph. It still amazes me to see her standing there amongst those five full-grown adults and to realize I have watched them all (metaphorically speaking) come into being and grow up along with their parents. It hardly seems possible, yet the evidence is irrefutable. Perhaps, had I raised a brood of my own, it would not feel so surreal. They are all healthy, good-looking young people with incredible determination and drive, much like their parents. Excuse me while I give my head a shake just to get my brain to settle back down again.

Our adventures and projects seem so small in light of the lives of so many of our friends and family, but they are ours and it keeps us busy and out of everyone else's hair. Speaking of which, I actually have some, finally! It is growing back more slowly than I like, but it is growing back! Hooray!

We have been sorting and clearing a lot of stuff out of the house to help make room. It is a little discouraging in that it has yet to look like we have made much headway, but we plan to keep at it until it does look that way. We have made several donations to a local thrift store that supports a no-kill animal shelter, as well as to a church whose pastor, and some of his family and parishoners, really helped us out when Patty was so sick, after she died, when we were trying to close up her house and get things in order, and after I was diagnosed with breast cancer and was going into the hospital for what turned into three major surgeries in addition to the chemo (which was fairly mild, considering it was chemo).

I had overpurchased Christmas wrapping paper and such following Patty's death and during a depression that was far more intense than I realized at the time. As we got through stuff I found I recognized all of it but, at the time I was buying it, had had no conception of the actual amount of paper goods I was accumulating. I suppose it was one of the least expensive ways to express a depression - the bargain hunter in me is too strong to give in to full priced wrapping paper! - but it was an incredible amount of stuff. At least the church will be able to make use of it and distribute it to those who may not be able to afford any of these things for themselves during the next (several) holiday seasons. And my sweetie-pie gets a tax receipt to boot.

There is still so much stuff to go through and get rid of, fortunately there is no shortage of places where donations of this type of overflow are very welcomed and actually useful, unlike the place the stuff holds in our house; inert and in the way!
I suppose we are the proper age for the "empty-nester" behaviors I have heard about - mostly the decluttering activities and such, but it seems like we have filled our nest with things instead of little birds and that makes me feel a little lonely knowing I will never be a grandmother, never hold a child of my own, never experience the joy I have seen in so many parents lives when their children blossom and succeed in life's pursuits. I am very grateful for what I have, but I can still see what I had always dreamed of while a young woman still sliding away from me in the distance and sometimes it still hurts.

So, here's to a year without cancer, without wars, and without hatred and prejudice. May it be so.

Izzlebug