Blessings and Messing with My Mind

The only one who can mess with me is me. This long winter of grief and re-connection to myself, me and I has yielded one answer: I don't know everything and I never will. 

The range of emotions I've allowed myself to feel have included:

• Fear (of what will become of me with worsening health issues)
• Anxiety (a blanket that wrapped itself around my shoulders)
• Sadness (overwhelming at times while I mourn my brother)
• Guilt (that I am not all that I should have been or can be)
• Anger (at my brother, at God, at myself for not being more able)
• Hopelessness (thinking like my brother; that all is lost)
• Confusion (thinking that all of the above is just a jumble in my mind)
• Envy (of those who don't seem to have the traumas that have been thrust upon me)

And as spring finally arrives, there is:

• Hope (that the veil is lifting and I am beginning to accomplish goals both big and small again)
• Joy (my sons are remarkable and make me so proud)
• Relief (that I've made it through the worst of it)
• Gratitude (I am warm, I am fed, I am housed, I am loved)
• Forgiveness (for myself and my brother)

The winter of my discontent is finally over. 

So, for me, while It's back to basics and getting my priorities in order (yet again!), it's also a time to kick myself in the ass and take risks. Two big work projects loom before me, a book signing event this Thursday and the dedication of the Stephen L. Crohn Art Gallery at Saugerties Public Library on Sunday.

A dear friend sent me this poem, Although I am familiar with the Wordsworth lines I read it twice aloud to let them truly sink in:

Splendour in the Grass

 What though the radiance

 which was once so bright

 Be now for ever taken from my sight,

 Though nothing can bring back the hour

 Of splendour in the grass,

 of glory in the flower,

 We will grieve not, rather find

 Strength in what remains behind;

 In the primal sympathy

 Which having been must ever be;

 In the soothing thoughts that spring

 Out of human suffering;

 In the faith that looks through death,

 In years that bring the philosophic mind.

~ William Wordsworth ~

I will "find strength in what remains behind." I hope you can, too.