Last week in TX, Day 2

It's still hard. Today I woke up with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It has nothing to do with lack of food. In fact, I don't even feel like eating, but I've just had breakfast. I'll need to disconnect the refrigerator today. I need to get as much of this house in that POD as I can. Tomorrow I have to go through the garage. That just about makes me want to find a match or a bulldozer. My daughter is my cheerleader. She said yesterday, "We'll make it. It will all fit." I'm usually an optimist, but this is sapping the good stuff out of me. Intellectually I KNOW God is here with me. I've asked him today for strength and peace. I feel like my emotions are all clogged up and sitting in the pit of my stomach. I KNOW I will get through this, but I'd rather go around it. I'd rather help someone else going through it, but it's my turn. I know I'll get to the other side and be lighter again. I know it's important for me to write it, so I appreciate you bearing with me as I chronicle the feelings on this day. I know why people don't move. It is one of the hardest things to do. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. Mentally. It takes all pistons working together and I'm sure some of mine are out of whack. I'll now share a pic. of the grandkids yesterday at Nanna's house, while their mother is packing up my kitchen. 
My Lord knows the way through (my) wilderness,
All I have to do is follow.
My Lord knows the way through (my) wilderness,
All I have to do is follow.
Strength for today is mine alway and all I need for tomorrow.
My Lord knows the way through the wilderness,
All I have to do is follow.
Pray for me. I need HIS strength.

Last week in TX, Day 1 revisited

Day 1 was hard. I woke up yesterday with such puffy eyelids I didn't know if they'd ever go back to normal. I'd cried the night before over hurts I'd inflicted. I cried yesterday morning over leaving my kids. People have said to me, " I can't believe you'd leave those kids" so often, I began to feel like a horrible person for even considering it. I began to grieve over leaving them. Not my grandkids, but my kids.
Cried talking to Mamma. Cried with daughter. Cried when former neighbor came to say "good bye". This is hard.
When the POD arrived, I wondered how in the world is my whole house of stuff going to fit in that 16' box? By late afternoon, when I had no one to start filling up that POD, I was getting lower. Then my daughter made a connection and after she left, 2 boys showed up and were wonderful!! We three worked in 90 degree humid heat to start the puzzle-piecing together. They took my freezer out. It left a trail of water...on the carpet and all across the front hall floor, but at least it was just water. The boys left and I felt a little better.
Went to bed with a headache. Didn't sleep well. woke up around 3:30, drank some water, read a bit, went back to sleep. But this morning....I'll now write Day 2.

Last night's dream.....more of a nightmare

"My Lord knows the way through the wilderness,
 All I have to do is follow,
My Lord knows the way through the wilderness,
All  I have to do is follow.
Strength for today is mine alway,
And all I need for tomorrow,
My Lord knows the way through the wilderness,
All I have to do is follow."

That song came to me this morning as I thought of last night's dream. I woke up this morning from a deep sleep and wasn't really ready to get up. In my dream, I was with Dawn, Paula, and Beth, (dear friends from college) and a couple of other girls I didn't know. We were going back to college and there were to be six of us in the room. That bothered me tremendously! Dawn brought a sleeping bag to use and I had nothing. No sleeping bag, no sheets. I felt so "out of it". It was our first night before starting classes the next morning and we were in that "let's find out who's in our dorm" frenzy and as people were coming and going, I did up my hair in those icky scratchy rollers! I didn't have enough, so wondered what my hair was going to look like in the morning. I knew I didn't wear rollers now (we were the age we are today) but I knew I'd worn rollers back then, so I was trying to fit back in. Not working! As I left someone else's room to go find our room, a lady told me the rollers wouldn't be allowed at the meeting scheduled in 15 minutes. We got back to our room and I yanked those rollers out and felt so confused. Then I woke up.
As I digested that dream, I realized I no longer fit in the classroom and I was not going to miss the starting of school. I'd been concerned about that. I'd expected to miss the whole "first day of school" and buying supplies (LOVE buying stuff for school, whether for my kids or myself!)  and getting ready to start a new year, as I have for over 40 years. It is not a part of my life now and I am perfectly fine with that. It's like my teaching was "another lifetime". When I think of being married, that, too, is "another lifetime".  Then I thought of the song I printed above, and realized God is even interested in taking care of my loss of teaching. It's not a loss, it's just another part of me. He's showing me "through the wilderness" of this transition from Texas and teaching to New Life in North Carolina. He continues to amaze me and all I have to do is follow. No "yellow brick road" for me, just God's footprints.
I'm enjoying the road.

August, 2011

I can't come up with a title just now, so for the moment, I've used a date. Let me go back to about a month ago.

July 4, decided to move.

July 5, made appointments with two realtors.

July 11 (1:30 am)  Mom and Jayne arrived to help me clean, pack, have a garage sale, spread mulch, plant flowers, clean nasty AC vents in the ceiling, pick up clutter, go through closets, and a hundred other chores. Heather came to do some of the above jobs AND stage my house so it could go on the market.

July 11 chose realtor.

July 16 garage sale. Sold every piece of furniture I had there. 

July 17, Mom and sister left to drive back to Atlanta and Charlotte.

July 19 in the wee hours of morning, I finished cleaning and staging and putting everything that I would normally have stuffed in the closet or pantry in the garage.

I came back in the house and got ready to go to Maine on my vacation.

July 19 flew to Portland, ME. Slept on plane.

July 20 house went "live" and was For Sale.

July 26 house sold.

Aug. 9, I left Maine and returned to TX.

Now comes the packing and saying "good bye" and leaving Texas. Today I went to James Avery (jewelry store) to have a new charm put on my bracelet. While there, I decided to have the lady cut off some charms I no longer want on my bracelet.

Texas charm...lost its charm somehow....

New Hampshire...met the ex there

Bermuda...honeymooned there

heart with 20 years engraved on it...we all know that didn't mean anything

So as I continue to look for ways to "construct" myself, I have cut (literally) more "ties" with the former husband. It's liberating. I'm not mad; I'm just enjoying the freedom to DO and BE what I want.

I bid on and won a walking stick made by a childhood friend. It represents a strong me walking forward on my new journey. I'm moving to a new state. I'm going to have a new career. I'm going to buy my first home as a single woman. I'm loving this!!!!!! I could not have done this alone. God has wedged me right up under his arm where I'm protected and being guided. I have been given one stepstone at a time. I don't need to know when or where the next stone will appear, but I'm confident it will show up before me. I'd not taken the time to journal in a while, so I had to catch up.

Stay tuned. I close on this house at the end of the month. Then out of Texas I'll drive. Not like a piece of tumbleweed, for I'm not being blown about. I'm being shown a path and given directions in whispers. No lightening. Just quiet directions to follow.

Stay tuned.