A Return to Normality

After ten months of mostly silence from this computer, I want to greet all of you with a joyous “Hello!!!” I hope you are well and that the past year brought you great growth in the human spirit of compassion both toward others and yourself.

         I planned on posting a memoir story today, but as I am more and more aware of—Man proposes, but God disposes. That saying is sexist and doesn’t reflect my present theology but it does sum up the lack of control any of us have over the vicissitudes of our lives.

         So instead of posting a new story today, I’m simply posting a recent exchange between Arleen and myself. As many of you know, she is a friend over at Starting Over, Accepting Changes. Her blog name nails where I am in my life right now.

         Last Saturday—September 20, 2015—Arleen wrote the following comment on my blog: Dear Dee, please let us know if you are OK. So many of us are concerned. You have made an imprint on our lives.

This, of course, touched me deeply as I’ve been away from blogging—reading and commenting on your stories and writing my own—for so long that I’m amazed people remember my writing and me.

So I immediately wrote the following response to Arleen’s welcomed comment: Dear Arleen, thank you for this note of concern and also for the one in June. I want to assure you that I am okay. Since I last posted . . . I have had one health concern after another. The most recent involved "high dose" radiation, which was effective and successful. 



However, all this has left me very tired. Weary actually of dealing with these tedious blips in my life. The good news for me is that I am now going to take up the reins of my life again and return to a daily routine. That means that I will continue to work on my convent memoir, look for an agent, and . . . begin to read and comment on blogs again as well as post stories of my own.

. . .  I've missed knowing what was happening in the lives of people—like you—whom I've come to care about. And so I'm eager to begin reading about what's going on in the wide world beyond my own home where I've spent so much time in the past ten months. I am so touched by your concern.          
           Truly all is well. And as Julian of Norwich said from her anchorage so many centuries ago: "And all shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be exceedingly well." 



I hope that you, too, are well. I will be eighty on April 1 next year and I'm thinking that this past year with all these health concerns has simply provided the measure for how wonderful the next decade will be. I look forward to more and better writing and to embracing the possibilities that the future holds for me to embrace growth in every way.

Let us both be gracious to ourselves. Peace.

If all goes well, I plan to begin reading blogs again tomorrow—Monday the 28^th. I’m not going to pressure myself next week to get to every blog I follow. I do plan, however, to read several each day until I’ve reacquainted myself with each of you.

I’m not sure if any of you whom I used to follow are reading this posting right now. If you are, please leave a comment. Let me know if there are any postings or any series of posting in the past ten months you’d like me to read. I don’t have the time or energy to read everything you’ve posted during this past year, but I would like to know the highlights—and lows—of your lives.

In my first posting, I meant to share the highs and lows of my own life since last November. But on reflection I realized that no sane person would want to spend time with me as I droned on about ten month’s of ill health. So just be assured that, as I said to Arleen, “All is well.” And I so hope that all is well with you.

Peace.