Letting go, moving on.

Yesterday I went up to Conifer hill and began packing in the things that I wanted to get down before the beginning of the year.  The day was lovely.  The cabin is partly disassembled and many things of great sentimental value have been incorporated into my house.  I am still digesting what this means to me.
Both the boys made it up and took things that they wanted and needed home as well.  I am tired and sad to let this enormous part of my life go.
But it is true.  The cabin needs more time and energy and money than anyone in the family can give it.  It needs structural work that is critical for safety and the attic is infested with wood rats.  it was a wonderful part of our lives.  I am so glad it was there, so much of who I am and how I think both good and bad grew up there.  I will carry it in my heart all my life.
bless the land, bless us all good bye and good luck.

Poke at it from a distance

The Footless Man has had his insulin pump delivered.  It is a very spiffy number and it came with a choice of colors, so it is purple.  It came in a box with lots and lots of sinister looking packaged thingummies that turn out to be connector doohickeys and flasklets that hold insulin.
In the spirit of nine year old boy inquiry Mr Footless opened one of the packages to examine the slightly sinister occupant.  After eying it carefully, twiddling all the bits, removing all the removable pieces and re assembling the works afterwords, He concluded that he has no idea how it installs the wee plastic tube that delivers the insulin in carefully measured doses. 
This thing comes with a tome approximately 12 times its volume which was unable to enlighten him.*  It spoke of many things, just not that.  He remained mystified for a week and a half until the trainer called to set up a training session.  She sweetly directed him to the company website and the training videos contained therein.
Last night Footless and I sat and looked at the training vids.  It was very informative.  The mystery is solved to his satisfaction and mine as well.
*I am wary of any technical thingy that has an instruction booklet bigger than the object, or that weighs more than the object.  This does both.

Morning Meditation

I was sitting here this morning and playing solitare while I was waiting for the computer to finish its internal scan.  It struck me very hard to realize how damaging and painful judgement is, and how much we need to be loved.  Problem is, that judgement is easy.  Loving is hard.
In all the struggles that I have had, underneath it all I have wanted to be seen and to be recognized.
More than that I have wanted to be loved. 
Where I can be helpful to the people that I see is not in what I can do for them but in the quality of the loving that I can give them. 
Now that I understand that, how does it change who I am and how I act in the world?

What to get for someone who doesn't want another thingy

The Footless Man is a romantic.  He likes to give me jewelry.  I wear the same pieces of jewelry constantly.  My neck and ring fingers are in use.  He likes to give me snarky T shirts.  I have too many of them and wear them only on weekends in the summer.  He asked me what I would like to mark our twentieth anniversary because he was stuck.  I thought it over and I told him.  I want a pedicure.  So he gave me a pedicure.  The extra special kind with all the bells and whistles.  My feet have been scrubbed and salted and filed and creamed and massaged. The toenails were filed and primped and painted purple.  They look adorable and I feel pampered and loved.  I can wear it for a month or two, and get another one when this one wears out.  I feel wickedly decadent.  I like it.

The last of the pictures of the wedding

I finally found the pictures that I unearthed and then lost.

 

 

What hits me in these pictures is how utterly happy we are, and  how young and handsome the footless man looks.  We were besotted with each other and it showed. 

It was twenty years ago come Thursday

 Here we are when Footless Man had both feet and his eyesight.  Here I am, before school, training, and all the challenges of everything in between.
and look at us.  We are so radiant, so happy.  It took so much to get even there. If you look at the things against us it looked like it would never work.  All the obstacles all the hoops.  It seemed like it took forever to happen and it looked so impossible for so long.  And there we were.  
I think about all the challenges we faced, what we accomplished both together and alone.  For one thing we both expected that I would be widowed within five years.  Given that, the other losses seemed, well not minor, but more cope able.  Some how a prosthesis is a better choice than a coffin. 
Kids are raised,  School is mostly done,  We passed the expected five year limit four times. We have moved into middle and old age.
What an amazing journey.
There are very few photos of that day.  I went and dug around to find them.  I came up with this.

bouquet

hair wreath

And this proves beyond a doubt that mom is a sentimental pack rat.
So here we are twenty years later.  It has been one wild ride.  Next stop, 25.  Five years out.  Always five years out.  I can think about five years, it's manageable.
I will put up more photos later because they promptly went into the fifth dimension shortly after they showed up. 

Some things to think about

I re read my copy of Parenting With Love and Logic.  The one that helped me raise my kids without killing them.
I have been applying the love and logic methods of interaction to the Footless Man.  Suddenly we are getting on much better .  Footless Man sat down in the computer room and I was able to show him

The barking cat,

Maru
 and several other delightful pieces that he has been missing.
today The Footless Man removed the cherry paneling from the front of the refrigerator revealing it in its almond glory.  I have word that it is leaving next week.  Footless Man wants to figure out how to put the panels on the new refrigerator.  I sympathized. Sometimes reality is a hard place to live.