Today I Cried

 Today I started on a new journey in my life, a journey of trying to create a new life for myself.

I'm taking a course on planning and goal setting/achieving and started with the "homework" we were given to do.

The first page has already brought me to tears.  Let me explain.

In my 20's when I moved out of my parent's house, only to move back after a few years to help my Father take care of my Mother who had a mini stroke.  A few years later, I met and married the love of my life and gained a teenage niece whom he had guardianship of.  I was able, thanks to my husband, to finish my bachelors degree at ASU just eight months before he passed away suddenly and unexpectedly.  I was 33 years old.

My husband had been gone four months when my Father was diagnosed with cancer #1.  So the grieving got put on hold while helping Mom take care of Dad  Thankfully, he survived that cancer and I was able to start taking some computer classes at Mesa Community College just out of fun and curiosity.  I ended up getting all A's in these classes and found some fulfillment in satisfying both my techie brain with the creativity to create web pages.

A few years later I would lose my Father to cancer #2 (lung cancer) and was now the sole caregiver of my Mother.  This also meant teaching my Mother how to cope with losing a husband.  Again, my life changed.  By this time, I had gone back to working full time, this time not in banking but in public education, using the computer skills and education I had acquired after my husband's death.  This allowed for me to help out my Mother financially as well as emotionally as best as I could.

This went on for 10 1/2 years until my Mother passed away suddenly and unexpectedly and my life changed again.  Now, for the first time in my life, I feel completely alone in my grieving and my struggling to create a new life - again.

So today I sat during my lunch break and started working on the homework for his planning/goal setting class.

The first questions asked were, You are a complete success in your life, what does your life LOOK like in five years?  Then the next big question:  How does your life FEEL?

I was able, for the first time since my 20's (I'm now 54 years old), to actually picture my having a life that doesn't involve taking care of another human being.  Now, any dreams I have are no longer confined to what I can fit in my life while taking care of everyone else in my life.

I was able to write down what a life would look like (if successful) and then to write down what it would FEEL like.

This caused me to cry, but these were happy tears.  For the first time in what seems like an eternity, I could see a life for myself and feel a life for myself that actually was based on my own dreams and aspirations. 

This allowed for me to go back to work with a different mindset and finish out my day picking up the printout of the first 90 days of the planner, pick up a few additional supplies for the class at Staples and picking up some items at Costco to enable me to skip the grocery store for at least another day or two.  I even found items there that were completely out last week when I shopped at Costco, allowing me to stock up on some needed items.  

I feel completely blessed and completely grateful to God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost for seeing me through so much pain and struggle to a place where I can see God's tender mercies.