Hope

I don't know if it's the early spring-like weather we are experiencing or just the change in the atmosphere in my home, but I feel such a sense of hope lately.  For so long I felt nothing but despair and this is more than welcome.

It started simply.  I went for a run yesterday and was debating going into the road because the sidewalks in my neighborhood can be difficult to navigate while trying not to look down.  We need a new sidewalk and a driveway.  We've needed it for a while but the money is never in the budget.  For so long I would think about the fact that we needed them, realize we had a ton of debt and be depressed because I was never going to live long enough to see them.  When I thought about them yesterday, I thought, maybe next year we can use our income tax return to get them.  Usually that money is spent before we ever get it.  It was so refreshing to look forward and not feel trapped.

I am the type of person who is always changing things.  I'm constantly rearranging furniture and moving things all around the house when I get tired of looking at them somewhere.  I'm the same way in the yard.  Every spring I look forward to getting outside and seeing what I can create.  The last few years, everything stayed exactly where it was.  I felt like I had lost my ability to dream.  I always have a project "cooking" in my mind.  Most of them never come to fruition but it never stopped me from imagining.  I had nothing.  Most of my things for the yard never made it out of the shed.  The gardens were left to bloom as they would.  I did weed and maintain but that was the extent of my effort.

I cannot wait to get outside this year.  I stand and stare out of my back door and in my mind I see it done.  Do I want to make the kids a little basketball court with some concrete blocks that are laying around at my in-laws?  Should I make a fire pit area in that corner of the yard where it's so bare?  I dream and draw it over and over in my mind.  Even though none of these projects will cost any money really (I am excellent at repurposing) for so long I just didn't care.  What's the point?  Who cares if my house is cute and cozy?  We had become hermits who never entertained anyway.  I see parties in my yard now.  I see the food and drinks and what I will serve with what.  I love it!

I'm a dreamer.  I always have been.  On one hand I am the most logical cerebral gal you will meet.  I don't question alot in life.  It happens.  I deal.  There is so much in this world that I can't control and I don't expend a whole lot of energy wondering why.  I choose to spend my efforts on things I can control and change.  However, I need to have that creative outlet.  I need to not feel trapped in my life.  For me, that is the death knell. 

When I feel trapped in a rut is when I run.  When I looked at my life and saw it being this way until old age and eventually death, it was tragic.  More than the fighting and stress, the monotony was driving me from this marriage.  With the coming of this spring, I feel my own rebirth.  I feel my world unfolding like the flora and fauna will when the sun shines longer and the days turn warmer.  I feel joy and I feel hope.  I feel absolutely, wonderfully alive.