Sleepless in Seattle

Sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to be able to sleep. My mind just starts going around and around, jumping from one thought to another. Often I am thinking of my family, how they are getting along in life, the struggles of day to day living that they go through. My children are foremost in my mind, and now that they are all grown and living their own lives, I am not involved as much in their daily routines. And that's o.k. I never want to be a meddling Mother. It is right that they don't need me as much. It means that I have done my job raising them to stand on their own.

But I'll never stop worrying about them. Or missing them. But I guess that comes with the territory. Sometimes I wish I could have just one more day......

I don't know what it is about the wee hours, but it always seems to bring out the nostalgia in me. Maybe because it is still. And quiet. And I can actually listen to my thoughts. I can remember a time when my life was so busy that I rarely had time. Every once in a while, even then, I would stay up all night just to have the quiet. I craved the silence after my busy, noisy days of raising 4 children, working, dealing with all that goes on in a busy, active family.

But now the silence is sometimes deafening.

It has been a hard year. I try and keep a positive outlook. I really am a hopeless romantic. I look at life through rose colored glasses at times. But at the same time I am a realist. Behind the rose colored lenses, I am aware of life's darker side. How can you live in this world and not be aware? And that is when I have the sleepless nights. Imagination can run wild. I start to worry about things I have no control over. And I think about the past. The 'what if's' and the 'why's'. But I know that you can't change it. You can only learn.

Losing my Mother has been a lesson. Losing my Father to Alzheimer's has also been a hard lesson. I think of their lives and what they left behind. A legacy to learn from. Sometimes there is wreckage left behind. Things you just can't clean up. Death brings out the best and the worst in people. An eye opening surprise. I have lost more than my parents. But I have left the door open. I am taking the high road. Sometimes it's lonely on that road.

The lesson learned is that the only thing that matters, the only thing that remains, is the love you leave behind. Not everyone can see that. And that's o.k. Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could've been any different.

Sometimes it's the state of the world that keeps me awake at night. My little problems are so petty in comparison. I feel so powerless in the face of such overwhelming need. Every day my heart aches for the poor, the victims of crime, disaster, war, famine, disease. I just don't understand the inhumanity of it all. What is the answer?

And so, in the still, quiet hours I think about these things. Until finally, I realize that I don't have the answers. I don't have the solutions. I have to just let it be. I need to have faith. Faith in love, faith in forgiveness, faith in the Universe. Faith in myself. Faith in the fundamental goodness of this life, this world.

And so, if you don't mind, I think I will put my rose colored glasses on once more before I shut my eyes and dream my hopelessly romantic dreams of what a wonderful world this can be.

Sweet Dreams