Pearls of Wisdom and Foolish Mutterings

A Clouded Window

Seems the title of my blog is proving true lately, especially the Foolish Mutterings part. And even those don't come easy lately. I feel strange - out of sorts or ill-at-ease, somehow. You know the old saw about "feeling comfortable in your own skin?" I just can't seem to find that comfortable place in my own skin right now. Usually when I feel that way, it tells me that some big change is on its way. I have to say, I don't think I'm up for a big change right now.

It could be that having finally put to bed the never-ending gobstopper of my dad's estate, a large chunk of my mental faculties has been freed up and after four years of always having that hanging over my head, accompanied by no small amount of dread, I just don't know what to do with myself now that it's finally over. Yes, it could definitely be that. As strange as it sounds, I seem to have forgotten who I was before this tragedy draped itself around me. And it's made all the more confusing because these last four years have changed me. Even if I knew who I was before, I'm someone altogether different now.

Oh, I'm still the same in so many ways. I still wear all the same hats - wife, mother, grandmother, sister, friend, even daughter still; because I'm fortunate to still have my birth father with me. But it's not the roles I play or the hats I wear that have changed. It's deeper than that. On a fundamental level, somewhere deep in my psyche, I'm different. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Change can be good, especially as we age and it's tempered with wisdom (I hope.) But it's not a comfortable place. Not yet.

There's an ache deep in my heart; a melancholy that's pervasive. My heart is a crowded place, with emotions tripping over each other, clamoring for attention. Pssst, hey, look over this way, hey, over here!  Gone is the cocksure attitude of certainty that I cloaked myself in. I regret the patronizing air that I so easily adopted with my mother in her later years. I'm all too aware of the swift fleeting of time, and of the moments I squandered instead of treasuring. Now I look back through a clouded window of uncertainty and dismay.

I know I have to reconcile the past before I can find a way to look forward. Now that the distraction of an acrimonious probate is gone, all the emotions I had squarely tucked away are fighting their way to the surface and demanding to be recognized. I see them, I feel them, but I want to push them away. I have no energy to deal with them. Confronting those emotions of grief and loss that have been so long-delayed will hurt. Anger and self-righteous indignation are so much more manageable.

I have to step on to this path and start the journey. I have to feel the loss, absorb the pain. I don't want to, but if the last four years have taught me anything, they taught me that I won't crumble, I won't lose myself to the grief. I'll walk through it, or maybe I'll crawl through it, but either way, I'll come out on the other side of it. It's just that first step that I hate...