Reflection Early 2020

Well, I've made "The Shift" as I call it. The Shift is going from being a widow to someone who has decided how she wants to live the rest of her life. I really resisted this moment, hoping to play awhile longer, just float some more and I probably would have done so if not for some unfortunate and perhaps ridiculous circumstances. For people who know me, particularly my family, I am considered a closed-off person, someone who can be cold, indifferent, distant. In the company of people I know, I can be warm but I am not very very giving. I've lived most of my life with one person, John, with books, with paintings, in my garden, alone, doing only what I wanted. The last couple of years I've tried to be more social and have failed miserably. I don't know how to be with people. Laughing. I can be with them in work, in books, in my garden. I'm a good person, but at times, I am naive. I guess this is due to the fact that I expect people to have manners and civility.  I grew up in a household where manners were totally necessary. But in the world outside my world, people are not like this. And I have been foolish.

But I never repeat the same mistake.

And I have moved on.  

All of this online mess I've made has prompted me to go ahead and do what I need to do. Just quit playing, procrastinating, floating in and out. I don't make these big shifts often but when I do, people get confused. They wonder what happened to me. I made one around 2006, and another another one around 2012.  This is probably the most severe shift I have ever made, since I was a very young woman. It's been coming, slowly but surely.  But there are only a few moments in life where we are faced with rebuilding our lives, our goals, deciding how we want to live.

I know how I want to live the rest of my life, and it's not online, in the middle of clusters with people I don't really know. I just can't be there for people I'll never really know. And I don't want to be just a widow anymore. I want to move on and live a rich and full life, to do things and be with my children and grandchildren, my flowers, and my books, and yes, my writing. I want to finish a novel. 

So, I am making online changes. Making it a smaller part of my daily life. 

I am going to write a big novel and then another one. And I am going to smile while doing it.