My Name is Kris and I Blah-g

Today was supposed to be a new beginning for me. It was kind of the last of the milestones of one life and the first of a new one. I have had my house up for sale now for a year. I haven’t slept in it since January 3rd, 2008. On the night of January 4th, I found myself living with family about 15 minutes south of the home I had built with my husband and daughter. It wasn’t how I saw things happening for my life but much like I learned that night in January, lots of what we want, hope for and dream of usually isn’t in our control. And to some degree, I kind of like that. I like not always knowing what’s around the corner. Sometimes surprises can be good. But sometimes they can be bad, too. I’d like to think that I’ve dealt with my surprises well. I would hope that I didn’t let the disappointments get me down too much. I would also hope that fretting would be something I would rarely do although I must admit that the past few years my life has been full of fretting.

So, as the shock and awe of that night in January started to wear off, I began making promises to myself – I promise to stop worrying. I promise to let the chips fall where they may. I promise to seek after happiness even if it makes me sad to do so. They say that fear is the opposite of faith. I believe that. I truly lacked faith in the past few years because I was consumed by fear. But what could I do? I was treading water, really. But what this experience has taught me is that despite my worst fears being realized, I survived them. I can still smile and laugh. I can still live. And although death provides such a finality to a way of life, it also brings with it a huge pile of emotions that make it difficult for a person like myself to look ahead because I’m always looking back wondering what I could have done differently to make the outcome better. There’s not much progress in that kind of living. I reminded myself of one of those mechanical animals you’d see sitting outside a toy store at the mall – usually it’s a pig. It walks, wagging its tail and wiggling its nose and oinking until it hits the barrier of the circle. It tries to keep moving but the barrier stops it. It can’t even walk in circles. It just moves it legs and goes no where. Yeah, I felt like that toy pig until… one day someone said to me that it was time to jump back into life. That it’s ok to want things for myself that will make me happy. It was good to hear that because being sad was exhausting.

So, with the first year behind me, I was looking forward now. The sale of my house was the last thing left. I set a goal in mind to let the closing day – today – be my moment. My Independence Day, so to speak. To have the buyers back out, felt like betrayal. It would be very easy to back down with my tail between my legs and allow the beatings to continue. But ya know what? I want my Independence Day. It just looks like I am going to have to fight for it and doggonit…this is one fight I’m not going to lose.