Four Days into a Week Without the Kids

Things are different these days.  The switch that I had been turning on and off for the past three years has finally stopped flickering and is lit.

I am four days into a vacation away from the kids and I am not wallowing, I am not crying, I am not mad, I am not, dare I say it, lonely. The strange thing is that I've been holed up in my house for these four days, for the majority of the time, doing what I enjoy doing:  writing. dancing around the house to all the amazing songs on my i-pod while I clean.  reading great words.  sipping on wine. even going to take a bubble bath tonight.

It was a long time coming and in all these months of writing this blog and promising that things were good, things were better, that life had changed, that I had forgiven, that I had forgotten, that I had found whatever it was that I was looking for, well, it's not flickering on and off any more, nor is the flame is increasing, decreasing or being snubbed out, it's just giving off a steady light.

I realized also, that the content of this blog is evolving which is why I haven't written too much in the last several weeks.  It was a forum for my grief - over the divorce first, and then into the death of my brother (which still shocks the hell out of me because it feels like it happened yesterday or not at all sometimes), but now?  I yearn for better things.  I yearn to be free of writing through any turmoil because it gets old.  I hope I can nail the sentiment, but it's like being sick of just existing in all of it.  I want to be free of the pain of my circumstances (whatever they are: missing the kids, missing my brother, being angry with the ex).  Actually, more precisely, I want to be free of the control that pain has had over me - ordering me to wallow or muse or worry or fear or contemplate in my own thoughts.  It's like I have finally, mercifully, hit the wall and I've decided to plow right on through it and see what's on the other side without even thinking about it.

I wonder, however, if the blog will be any good.  As most writers know, the best kind of writing comes when the highs are high and the lows are low - it's like the little creative monkey starts swinging from limb to limb during those times.   I spent some time looking through this blog.  There are some really good posts - where I can hardly believe I wrote them.  Then there are those that I wrote because I felt forced to write them for some reason - like I wanted to just keep writing and would even post crap if I had to - which, if you notice are crap.

I don't know.  Since working on the book and on some creative short stories, my writing need has been fulfilled.  The blog, the baby that was born when I was at the lowest point in my life, has somehow taken a backseat.  So, no guarantees that there will be anything more than a once-a-week thing, unless, of course, the kids are so amazing that I have to brag.  I'm not putting this baby to bed, but I'm not forcing myself to keep it awake either (which will totally make my ex happy, I suppose).

One day, I hope to look back on the early writings and compare them with the later writings and see that though I hit the lowest of any low, I also reached unimaginable heights.  I'm on the plateau right now... but one day, oh, one day, let it be!

I am four days into a week long vacation without the kids and I'm on a plateau?  That's so telling of how I've evolved, ain't it?

So, sorry if I disappoint, but my heart is way into something else right now, not the blog.  Who knows, maybe I've reached the horizon line I had been looking for...