Gilligan & the Skipper Two

*see below- excuses for my tardiness .

Last year, I got in a sort of accident at work or certainly worthy of being called a mishap. I will not get into the specifics however, suffice to say that led me here- to the island.

The island is the property I inherited from my parents after their deaths. I am not sure if I need to clarify this but they died seperately and completely unrelated, unless you count the illness part.

She was so sick and I just think we discounted it. Ignored the signs given all her strength until then and probably thought she could just power through the struggle. We were wrong.

I found a large and likely quite expensive diamond tennis bracelet- broken and in a butter tub with buttons and coins just placed in a cabinet in the formal dining room turned office/library like no big deal, like nothing, like that is just normal, everyone puts thousand something dollar bracelets in with old batteries and pocket lint.

You know I have finally, sort of, started actually cleaning out this house from their stuff. It’s comical however, I digress, I have not thought of this so much as “my house” and more their house that I inherited. If that makes sense.

I have kept an unreasonable amount of their things exactly where they were when they died. I previously had pulled it out and cleaned it then put it back where was. ‘Cause that’s where it goes.

My mom said she had to get accustomed to living alone which was a huge adjustment for her because she “went from my moms house, then I got married, and then I was with your dad”.

I don’t think I really understood what she actually meant until now. There is something absolutely different about starting over with kids or without kids empty-nest style.

To acknowledge the best thing I can do for myself and for everyone else is actually take time to be with myself. To ground, to heal, and to slow down. I have been swimming for far too long. In fact, I think I drowned. I know I did.

It is here that I find myself–which I have now come to realize is exactly where I should be-right where I belong, on a proverbial island, in the sort-of country on a couple acres, in a beautiful house, with two infinitely wonderful, healthy, and happy little boys.

Two little boys whom found themselves home all summer long with their north of quirky mama.

These boys home all the time with me made me realize quite a few things:

• I have not really been healing. I have just been sort of floating or I don’t know, hibernating-ish. So it is absolutely necessary for me to take a much more active role in myself.
• I was healing maybe but not in the right good way but more like by leaning into some one who get like both extremes of forever. Now the unrequited kind. See next bullet…
• I DO NOT NEED TO BE DATING!! This is heartbreaking and abundantly clear. Also categorically unfair.
• I was not going outside nearly enough. I need to remember take a deep breaths and understand that I was neglecting that basic life function.
• Actively seeking peace is absolutely necessary. I mean actively, not passively, because as soon as there is complacency, or more accurately, letting myself free fall down these “rabbit holes”, then chaos descends. How easy it is to slide into this cocoon of old habits looking for distraction to satiate the giant hole in my being and focusing on the wrong things, on the wrong “syl-LAB-bull”.
• Them boys really are isolated accidentally. There are no neighborhood kids because no neighborhood. No cousins near by or all that close in age or interest. No consistent visitors to show them a different perspective.
• It is really just the three of us– and that is what finally made me want to reconnect and with definite purpose.

I don’t know. I’m heartbroken and hurting. But most importantly present, soaking in this life of mine, which I suppose, or have certainty’s, that this is exactly where I am meant to be.