What Am I Doing? Where Am I Going? I'm Not Used To Having So Many Choices...

It's quiet this morning. Birds are singing and I'm listening to NPR and feel a large amount of calm, of peace and of self determination.

I can't remember having the choices I have today for many years.  Certainly not for the last five plus years since my husband's passing and the last two since Mom's and for the years before that as the path we didn't see was being set before us in Mom's growing medical challenges -- what we now see as the declines of Lewy Body Dementia.

We're moving forward. Daughter is being transitioned from a minimum wage job to a position where she can actually grow and become using her gifts and talents. An actual career path -- a long deserved use of her capabilities and abilities rather than just a "job", a place to go to "work".

I'm changing from a job that was causing me significant stress and was a dead end failing to acknowledge and use my skills and abilities but put a little food on the table and helped to pay other bills while daughter went through a special training program.

I understand holding on and making do. Working together, we not only survived, we're regaining lost and misplaced parts of life.

I'm focused on restarting my life in a familiar area where I'd spent a great portion of my professional life. I've started the journey and the path seems to be widening and far more sturdy and extensive for my wants and needs.

I'm exploring other opportunities and possibilities. We have the privilege of choices, now. We work together unifying and strengthening our individual selves and our family unit.

People generally don't understand today just as they didn't when my Mom came to live with our family about multi generational living. Millennials may change this mindset; Baby Boomers haven't been able to break the mold even when parents could greatly use this way of living.

It's not a new concept. Look around and see how other cultures value their populations from birth through all the stages and ages. We, in the United States, isolate and violate our elders through cutting them off, isolating them and then spending billions on the "challenges" we create.

Oldest son tried many ways to break us apart. He's focused on his sister and tried to "reason with" her to move out, get away, claiming I would "destroy her" like I destroyed him. 

Daughter has inner strength. She understands his choices, his actions and his decisions and witnessed how he negatively affected her life, our lives and his own. She's not his "little sister"; she's a wise and capable person in her own right, much to his distress.

It's always interesting when I hear adults who've lived on their own, who've made their own decisions for decades, claim their lives' challenges and problems were caused by others, especially a parent or parents. When you look closely, you see a pattern they set, they evolved and they decided early on and who continue not to be capable of changing those basic instincts and actions.

Daughter encourages; oldest son discourages.

Two supporters , one son and one daughter, and one distractor. Who should I listen to?

My Self. I continue to be capable. I welcome input. I make choices and decisions and do not cede this authority to anyone who has their self interests above what is my interest.

I'm exploring and finding more possibilities and directions.
I encourage all of you who've found yourself in this life stage to do the same.

Go while you can.
Do what you find interesting.
Be who you're meant to be.