Still having trouble

I am still having difficulties downloading pictures on the blog as they changed some things.  I was able to download this, one of my very favorite pictures.  It was taken in Prince Edward Island and I noticed this bike as Gail and I were walking along.  For some reason it gives me a sense of real life and what it should be all about.
I have found it difficult to blog in the last few weeks.  I am not sure why.  I have been busy.  I have built steps to the garage from the deck, have fixed the back door and have almost ALL of the storm windows on with CLEAN windows.  The last time the windows were washed was the spring of 2008 so it has been a long long time.  I finished in parts of two days and the job was not bad.  In fact I kind of got into it and felt like I can do this and it could almost be fun.  You will notice I said almost.
Most or all now know that I am embarking on year two of life without Gail.  I have thought a lot about what I have gone through and what I have learned over these last many months.  Here are some thoughts.

• I now know myself much better than I ever did in the past.
• I have found that to my big surprise I love to be with people.  At one time I thought I could be a good hermit who would play father and grandpa while working in my wood shop but I have found that to be alone too much is very empty.
• I have found that grieving is a life changing process.
• There is no turning the clock back.  If I ever thought that time could stand still or things could remain constant I have found that it is not possible.  Life changes daily and one can not stop it from happening.
• In difficult times one finds solace in God and strength in friends.
• One can decide to be sad or be happy.  In a given day a person may have no power to say which one you are but over time a person has the ability to be one or the other.
• God is all important and family is close behind.
• A person must make decisons daily and sometimes they can be right and sometimes they can be wrong but which ever they are YOU must make them and then YOU must live with them.
• Nobody has the corner on truth or right, not even self.
• I have become more tolerance and less judgemental.
• I will always have a heart for people who have lost loved ones.
• I will always have a heart for people who have lost someone to breast cancer.
• As much as I desire to have a cure for breast cancer found I will never give a dime to the pink cancer program that advertises so much and does so much fund raising.  This is a personal decision which I can explain only in person and not on paper.
• The work of keeping up a home alone is almost overwhelming.
• To live alone can be very difficult, to live lonely is a decision.
• It is better to have loved and lost then never loved at all. (not my words)
• A person can not avoid the race of life but it is up to each person whether they win or lose.
• I have seen many times the saying about do not judge me until you have walked in my shoes.  I now know that it is very very true.
• One can no more keep life the same day after day than one could preserve an ice cream cone on a hot summer day.  To hold on to life today as if it were yesterday is an impossible dream.
• If someone would have sat next to me on September 15, 2009 and tried to explain how difficult my next months would be I would have not believed them.  Would I trade this last year for anything, no.  That is because it would have meant never knowing Gail and that would have been the worst.
• Never in my life have I loved and appreciated family more than in the last 19 months.  I would say that to have a loving and supporting family is a daily mountain top experience.
• I have often asked myself what would I change over the last many years if I could change anything.  I have come to believe that I would have loved Gail more.  Did I love her?  I tried to love her with my whole heart but I would liked to have had a larger heart.

 In the last many months I have experienced much, changed much and accomplished much yet life moves on in a whirlwind of events and activities.  I have made many many decisions during this time.  Some have been easy and not so important and some have been difficult and very important.  Some have taken hardly a nanosecond to make and some have taken months to form and understand.  If I were to explain them this blog would become a book which would be boring, long and not important but I will share one here which was long in coming and difficult to make.  I understand that I may live the rest of my life as a single guy who loved and lost his loved one but who still decided to live life to the fullest in the best way he could.   But given that very real possibility I have decided that I will be open to a different life if God wants that.  I would be open to entering into a new relationship, one that would could make my life more complicated, more involved and perhaps more meaning full.  Will that happen?  I have no idea and I certainly am not worried about it.  If it happens I will be fine and if it does not happen I will be fine.  I have come to believe that when a person opens their heart up to change it is not possible to imagine what God might do but whatever it is be ready and be engaged.  I realize that when I am older I may look like the bike in the picture above but it is also possible that I may be like the bike I am excited to get this month which will be new, exciting and somewhat on the edge.