Let It Be

No, sorry, I didn’t write yesterday (but I did post a new poem on the Gypsy Scribbles on the Wall site). Thank you all for your concern. I guess I’ve spoiled you a bit, huh? Well, I’m flattered that you worry when I don’t post. Fact is, my head was too full to put into words, and I spent my creative ducats doing artsy stuff and composing a new song.

Ok, so… here’s the thing. I love you all and you’re wonderful for caring, but please stop worrying about me so much. Let me out from under the microscope? I’m fine. I really am. I love this life, and I’m excited about the direction(s) my life is taking. Yeah, there’s a dark day here and there. Storm clouds roll in, sometimes without notice, but that’s expected. That’s healthy, even!

To be fair, part of my frustration comes because I’m currently receiving what I’ve started to refer to as the 2nd Generation sympathy cards… holiday cards wherein people feel the need to recognize how awful the holidays must now be. “Thinking of you ... this must be a difficult time of year,” is really starting to grate on my nerves. Why would this time of year be any different?! Yes, I loved a man with my whole heart and soul (I still do, always will), and I lost him to a horrible disease. However, and this is going to sound very harsh to some - but deal with it, since I’m the one stuck feeling it - John died, Barb did not.

Please let me get on with my life. Please stop giving me the Grieving Widow Stare. (I will carry this grief forever, I promise you.) Please stop looking at me with the sad eyes as if to imply that my life is somehow less worth living, less worth enjoying. It’s not at all, in fact, these days it’s even more important to me to cherish what I’m given on a momentary basis than it ever was before. I am just as whole as I ever was, maybe more so now than ever. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – I made a promise to John that I would go on living, and that I would live well. I am doing my absolute best to fulfill that promise. I owe him that much and I owe myself that much. Dudes and Dudettes, I am diggin’ every damned day – even the bad ones.


Also, brace yourselves… I will find love again, and probably sooner than any of you would expect, think, hope, or find fashionably acceptable in terms of time. It may just be waiting for me as I write this. Who can say? I can only hope. I want love again and I want to give love again. John wanted that for me too (you can bet that, before he died, we discussed the hell out of every issue that I might face over the next decade). John knew the size of my heart, knew that there’d be room in it for someone new (even before I did), and knew that my loving spirit would be wasted alone.

“Happiness is only real when shared.”
~Christopher Johnson McCandless

Why do I even feel like I have to defend myself? Or justify myself? It’s certainly not because I’ve lost my I-Don’t-Give-A-Rat’s-Ass attitude. It’s not because I missed my daily dose of Fukitol. It’s because I want you to understand that this is a process. It’s ongoing. It’s all part of the Journey. It’s all part of the scenery that lines the path I’m on. To put a fine point on it, it's my fucking life!

Don’t ever presume to know what’s going on in my mind or what I’m feeling at any given moment. Trust me, you haven’t got the foggiest idea. Don’t you dare judge me, unless you’ve wandered in my shoes for a good long while. The story goes, that when John Lennon died, Ringo Starr rushed to be at Yoko Ono’s side. Supposedly, he walked in and said, “I know just how you feel.” To which, Yoko replied, “You haven’t got a fucking clue.”

This life is wide open to me now, and I am wide open to it. It’s my time to feel the sun, my time to feel the wind on the wings of this gypsy soul. “Live and love,” said the man. I intend to. Allow me.
From the bottom of my heart
comes an army of one,
marching back up the steps
into the rays of the sun.
~The Wallflowers