Committing...

Whatever you do, commit yourself to it! And yet I dither. A poor example for my children these days.

What happened to me, what happened to the way I was years ago. Without the constant anxiety. Is this just middle age? Is it hormones? Is it fear? Or just simply stupidity, inability, weakness..

Too many hours are spent writing, nonsense. Too many hours are spent poring through real estate listings, looking, considering. Too much time is spent running numbers. Will this work or would that be better? Does any of it matter?

Maybe it is just what has been happening lately. The work is getting to me. The hospital desperation. The strength exhibited in the face of dire consequences. A co-worker with whom I have not worked for some time. We worked together the other night. We are the same age. She lost her husband of twenty-six years in August. They have two children together and he had cancer. They had a rocky marriage but still, a marriage. "How are you doing?"..."Well, you know, it is lonely sometimes." Then she talked about taking a walk with their dog, by herself now, around their neighborhood. The dog went jumping, "like a deer", across a field. She wanted to tell someone, but had no one. And she said, "you know, we didn't always get along but he would have gotten a kick out of that story...he would have understood.." And I invited her to a yoga class, something she has been wanting to do. It wasn't much, but..

And then we talked about our work. She has been thinking what I have been thinking. How many more years can we go on doing this kind of work? And nurses don't have the best pensions. And why, oh why am I working where I'm working? Was it really God who placed me where I am? It was the only door that opened in my time of need. Yet, it seems, that real estate in the town where I work is cheaper than where I currently live...sooo, all things considered. And I stumble with some numbers. Great dreams swirl in this contorted brain. Further schooling has been placed on the back burner until the kids are through college, until this house--the great beastly burden that it is--is sold, until, until..But there is never any until. Tomorrow does not really exist. It does, and yet it doesn't. It is that mirage that you plan for, just in case. That piggy bank of savings that you put toward, just in case.

My mother finished her PhD in her fifties. She was able to use it for ten plus years. She retired nicely because of it. She was able to build a new house because my father died and she sold the gun shop. Had she not had my father...

My grandmother began teaching later in life and then lost her husband of thirty-eight years, her husband that she so loved...after he died she continued his wise fiscal practices and laid aside ever more money, that money allowed her to live well, well into her nineties. She had just begun to touch the principal when she died. The years immediately after his death she wanted to die, when she didn't she decided to live and so she did, travelling, working, volunteering. However, had she not had my grandfather...

And my sister with her rheumatoid arthritis, her husband takes care of her. And on and on...But I am my own ship. And haven't received child support or alimony for eleven years now. Who wants to listen to someone else constantly complain? Anyway, it was eleven years ago that we started bouncing the kids back and forth between houses, a condition known as "shared or joint custody". I do not like divorce or death.

And now. Ray says that next year he is thinking of taking time off before college. "What will you do?" He thinks that he will move out, get a job. He is very academically oriented, but has never had a job.

And Dylan is sure that he will go to college following high school. "Mom, instead of taking vacations, I would rather that you help pay for my college."..oh, uh, okay...And, I would love to help.

And, and, and....but really. Something's gotta give. There is a not-so-subtle desperation here. And I pray and......does God really hear? Of course he does, but our wills, wants and desires are not always his, and this whole business about committing yourself to him and he will give you the desires of your heart...? really? If I knew my own heart's desires maybe that would help.

Now the immediate. Dylan stepped into my "room", "Where are the room keys mom?".."They should be in the drawer." I say.. "They aren't", he says.."Well they were there the last time I saw them" I say..."But I gave them to you.." he says and I look at him.. un-huh, don't even go there with me son, the look on my face says it all. He has lost his room key and continues to use the master keys and now has lost them...how many times does it need repeating? "Keep track of your key...!"

"Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope?" Job 41:1