230113 Sitting and Thinking

This post may be interpreted as my being sad about my life at present, but far from that, it is meant to show that I am constantly learning how to get my life in peaceful order and accepting the hand that life has dealt me.

There’s an old saying, “Into every life a little rain must fall. In my lifetime I’ve had rainfall, once in the Philippines it rained for the 30 days I was there. It never stopped.
And then after Joyce passed away it rained on my emotions for 455 days and nights. I lived with and loved her for 58 years. I’ve only lived 18 years without her. This is the first time in my life that I have ever been alone.
My mother and father were married for 49 years until he died. Joyce’s mother was married to her father for 22 years until he died. It was rough for them as it has been for me.
I’ve been away from home many times, but always had many other sailors in the same situation as I was, so we got along well. We remained in touch for years after our service ended.
I’m doing better these days. It has taken a long time to accept that I am living alone and will likely spend the rest of my life that way. I have my daily routine that keeps me going. At times I fill in my routine with moving things, including moving furniture around, not because it needs to be moved, but rather to stay busy doing mindless things so I don’t think about things that trouble me. That may sound silly to some people, but it works for me. For some reason this piece I am writing made me remember one of my favorite poems,

The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.