I am sitting here multitasking with a drink in each hand.  A cup of coffee in one and my ever present glass of cold tap water in the other.  As I read comments made and reply to those, I glance over to last night's paper and the game section in the want ads.  I love to do crossword puzzles and that jumble game.  I happened to glance at the bridge section and there was a quote that began the text that said this.
Nikki Giovanni wrote, "Mistakes are a fact of life./ It is the response to error that counts."
Wow, that really hit home.  Weird how something pops up out of the blue and it is just what you need to hear.  Or it confirms something that you may have been uncertain of.
Everything that has happened to me this month, and I guess many of the previous months, are the path to a new beginning for me.  There is so much that I should have left behind literally years ago, and just could not do it.  This will be my clean break.  This is my second chance.
Ironically, the timing coincides with the beginning of the new year and the making (and hopefully not breaking) of another year's resolutions.  I guess one of the biggest for me would to not repeat the pattern of life that I have allowed myself to succumb to in the past two years here.
I feel a large weight off of my shoulders that I did not feel at this time yesterday.  Uncertainty is a bi***.  But now I have direction, a plan, and a time frame in which to accomplish it.
I guess my daughter and I can spend one last bittersweet Christmas here.  Maybe my son will join us and maybe not.  I don't mean to sound calloused, but if he doesn't I won't be surprised.  When my son left just after midnight on his seventeenth birthday, he stated loud and clear just how he felt about his family.
I have learned to let go of him.  I learned much earlier than planned what the "empty nest" feels like with regards to my son.  I watched one of my friends go through this a few years back and it was agony for her.  And her sons were grown and adults.
I love my son no less than I ever have.  I only want the best for him but realize that I have little sway in his choices and decisions any longer.  There comes a time for every parent when this is so.  You just learn to love from afar.
My daughter is the light of my life.  I wish you could all know her.  She has a wonderful spirit and a compassionate heart.  The energy my daughter exudes is amazing.  I know that I have done a good job raising her as I have with my son.
In the past four years or so I threw all of myself into R and my children and forgot to take care of me.  R will soon and my son already has moved on.  In many ways I feel empty after all of this.  This is the time that I start filling that back up.  I have learned that you cannot really best care for others if you do not care enough for yourself.
I have also learned (the hard way, twice over) that giving chance after chance in the hope that someone will change is futile.  After a certain point, you are throwing yourself away.  My horsey friend quotes the Bible.  "Throwing away pearls on swine."  (I shouldn't have to say this, but there are those who may take this verse the wrong way!  The Bible is not calling people pigs.  It is showing the ridiculousness of trying to adorn pigs with jewelry.) 
There are those out there that do not and will not value you and your contribution to their lives.  They will hide behind excuses and addictions and try to take you down so as to lift themselves up.  Those are the people to recognize as such and avoid.
Do you realize how cleansing and healing writing really is?  It just sort of hit me.  So much can be left on the page.  It can truly free you.
Anyway, I am happy that it is a new day.  My daughter was up early today, around seven.  I don't know why, as she went to bed at the usual time last night and usually doesn't get up until eight.  She heated the leftover chicken noodle soup and put it in her thermos for lunch today.  She was her usual happy self, bundled up like an Eskimo and walked to school.  (R has been gone since early early morning removing snow.)
Yesterday most of the snow was gone and the ground was frozen and hard as a rock.  Today everything is covered in a clean white blanket.  Although the sun hasn't made an appearance, there is something uplifting about all of the fresh white snow.  Of course, I didn't have to drive in the stuff this morning like others did.
It is a fresh new day.  I wanted to share the optimism and the joy of being able to wake again.  Do you think I have had too much coffee?  Just kidding.  ;)

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