Living alone, part two.

 

My friend Margaret made this for me. Those many stitches are done by hand.

 

“Living alone makes it harder to find someone to blame.” –Mason Cooley

This quote makes me laugh.  It reminds me of all the years living with D when we made jokes about who was at fault for whatever went wrong or whenever something went missing.  I blamed him; he blamed me.  Then we got a dog and we both blamed him.  I used to tell D that it was great having someone to blame for losing the scissors even when I knew that I was the only one who had used them.

Boy!  Has that all changed!  If something’s missing, it’s my fault.  When there are toothpaste spatters on the bathroom mirror, I did it.  Someone forgot to flush–ME.  Someone left clothes in the dryer to wrinkle.  Someone ate the last of the leftovers and I had my mouth all set to have them for dinner.  Who forgot to charge the phone?  Someone forgot to take the garbage out.  Someone left dirty dishes in the sink.  Whose dirty socks are on the floor?  If the quote above makes me laugh, why am I suddenly crying?  Because I’ve been living alone for more than three years now and I realize how unimportant all these things are.  After three and a half years, I still don’t like living alone.

So I allow myself a tear or two.  Then I wipe them away.  And I keep on keeping on.  And I think I’ve learned to go easy on myself when I need to and I try to get my rear in gear when I feel a need to do that.  And life goes on and mostly it’s good.

In a little while I will see my youngest granddaughter.  She’s four years old today.  She wants me to give her a pink “mama” bear for her birthday.  I shopped until I found one.  She’s very soft and huggable.  I put extra pink ribbon around her neck so she will look more mama-ish.  Can’t wait to see my little girl.  And that’s how life should go on!

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