Feelings

I have so many feelings running through me these days. I feel happy with how my love life is. I am content and fulfilled in my personal life. Joy and I get along so well. Love is so much kinder in your forties than when I was younger. Love in my younger years was passionate and spinning. Many highs and lows. Sometimes it seemed like the end of the world was at hand over a disagreement. Sometimes it felt like I owned the world when things were good. I have always been one of those people who felt like love is like a ferris wheel. There will be ups and there will be downs. When you are up so high, it is incredibly breathtaking. When you are low, it feels like the world has dropped out from under you. I lived that life for many years. Five years of dating Hell and then 16 years of life and love with my ex-husband. That isn't to say that days would go by where it was just an average day....In fact, that was part of our undoing. When my ex-husband lost his parents a month apart, and we lost my Dad, who was much like a father to Joey...It was truly the beginning of the end. All of the sudden, there were so many more lows. I walked around for the last 3 years we were together, and the better part of 3 years after we split up, trying to figure out what I had done wrong. I just knew I was to blame. Joey could never really explain to me why our once strong and healthy marriage disintergrated before our very eyes. I only knew that all of the hate, anger, and poison he carried around was directed to me. It took me a long time to work out for myself that I wasn't to blame. I also owe a thank you to my ex-husband for taking responsibility for his part in our divorce. I don't know to this day exactly what happened to him. He did his best to try to explain to me during the years when we tried to figure out what direction our relationship was going to take. For that, I will always feel gratitude. Joey is remarried now, and I couldn't be happier for him. I was afraid he would sabatoge his own life the way his father did and end up alone. I am so happy to say that is not the case. I think his new wife is perfect for him. I know that Joey and I learned many things from each other. And I think somewhere deep in his soul, he is glad for what we shared for so long.

Now, as I was saying, love in your forties is so much kinder. Things that would irritate me ten or twenty years ago no longer bring out the same reaction in me. I have learned patience...something I knew nothing about in my younger years. I have also learned that things that bothered me in the past no longer do. Whether that is because I have changed or because of who I am with, I don't know. Nor do I care. I am just glad about it. I have learned compromise. I used to be one of those people who always had to have my way. I am no longer like that, and this is a good thing.

How do I feel about my son? I am happy that he seems happy. His life is not going as his father and I planned, but his life isn't mine to live. He is healthy, he is happy, he is his own self. And God, do I love him. I love him more than anyone on the planet. Always have, always will.

As far as my job, there have been some disappointments as of late. A salaried manager who didn't work out. A change in the bonus program that I don't think is fair. The uncertainty of the economy. Work is work. I go. I do my best. I leave. That is the best I have in me right now.

So, overall, I guess you could say that my feelings are about what anyone else's might be. I am a little higher than mid level on that ferris wheel. And I can honestly say, if I were to stay here forever, I would be okay with that. :-)

Peace & Love

Jill