As the days turned into weeks,
and the weeks months,
and the months look as though they’re going to make the year with businesses saying they’re not going to bring employees back into the office until 2021,
and theatres announcing their live performances won’t start until June 2021,
Hubs and I at Footlights are sinking steadily deeper and deeper into the rut of home-bound living.
My sentiments, usually positive and bright are standing aside to let comments, I’d vowed never to utter, escape my mouth and rush helter-skelter filling the space with a cloud whose wisps and tendrils look uncannily elephantine and grim.
I want to be that optimistic older person for my children; their mentor for the future so they can confidently walk their life without fear of ageing and the feelings of invisibility and devaluation that dogs my generation.
But the other day I became that jaded woman whom I’d banished years ago. To my horror I heard myself, just as we were sitting down for lunch, say,
“I wake up in the middle of the night and think, ‘my life is over.'”
Whoah. Bite my tongue already.
No chance to rewind I had to bluster my way through the meal and apologise and luckily Daughts, who knows me well said,
“Come, I want to show you a project we’re working on…I’m going to need your help.”
I felt valued.
Her words melted away the gathering clouds and I began to notice several other instances during the week to re-enforce the truth that my life is by no means over.
A student commented to me,
“How do you move so gracefully?”
His friend said, “because she’s got class.”
I felt recognised.
At in-person socially distanced church the preacher reminded me,
“When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;” (Isaiah 43:2)
I grasped the Lord‘s hand and felt safer.
My grand-daughter and I spent the afternoon exploring her garden, she trotted along in her bare feet beside me, smiling and laughing and checking to make sure I was there.
At lunch she looked me in the eyes and fed me French fries from her plate!
I felt needed and loved.
My positive heart returned.
This pandemic will pass and I will remember the opportunities I had
to shed the unnecessary-ness-es of my life,
to re-think my choice of holy space,
to shop only once a week,
to view life through the eyes of my uplifted heart rather than through the eyes of others.
Don’t get me wrong, home-bound living hurts sometimes,
but every so often,
like a bite of lemon fried pie, the sweetness of life banishes the cloud,
the wisps and tendrils vanish leaving behind the deliciousness of – Grace –
and the promise of tomorrow.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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