It's about Time!

While I am thankful to be used in the healing process, I have been struggling with being only a stepping stone. Sometimes it can make me feel very walked on, taken advantage of, taken for granted. 
I am not an assertive person, never have been, when it comes to ME. What I can do, or what I know. Or even what I need & want. I think Rick spoiled me - just by being himself with me. Loving me so deeply, caring so much. 
I realize now that I have to draw some lines of boundary around my heart, my mind, my spirit, my body. This is MY life. I am called to LIVE it. But I cannot live it by any one else's ideas. 
And I realize that no matter what any one else says, thinks, or does - - I AM ENOUGH! I am a good woman, a faithful friend. I deserve MORE than to simply be the girl who's stuck in between. 

More than anything else right now, I desire peace. I am beginning to search for it as though it is some hidden treasure. Because in this world of craziness and chaos? It truly is a treasure - to know peace, to experience peace. 
The journey to find it, to have & to hold it, to experience peace ... that is the journey of this day, and of every day from this point forward. 
If it doesn't enhance the peace? Time to let it go. Be it possessions, of which I have so few now. Or be it relationships/friendships/acquaintances. Peace. Peace. Blessed Peace. 
Life goes on, even on the days and thru the nights that I don't want it to, it goes on. 
I promised Rick, my kids and my grandkids that I would do my best at living this life with grace and dignity. It's time - past time - to do just what I said I would do. LIVE IT!  

For the first time in a long time I am realizing my value and worth. 
I have always known it ... but these last 4 years and 7 months have shaken me to the core, so it's been easier to listen to the negative words than to my own positive affirmations. 
I feel like I am waking up from a very bad dream in a lot of ways. 
I am worth more than the life I have been (or not been) living since Rick died. 
The last 5 years of Rick's life were a difficult & long road that we walked together. But at least we were just that - - TOGETHER.
Those years tested and tried me in ways that I never dreamed were possible, yet I felt strongly that I was passing each test ...
Until.
Rick died.
Since then? I am not so sure that I have even skirted by on the passing part. I have survived. If that is something.
But now? Coming to myself all over again.

I feel like the shift has taken place. Perhaps it has been going on for a while now, or perhaps it just started. I don't know. But I do know that a shift is where I am. 
I am not the same person I used to be. She died the morning of April 23, 2015 - when Rick won his final battle with pain and suffering. She lay in that coffin with him. She went thru the fires of cremation with him. Her ashes are mixed together with his - most of which were set free on Mount Hood, Oregon - a few are in the bottom of my jewelry box waiting for the moment when I mix those ashes with potting soil and plant sweetheart roses. 
These words to the left are more true than what I want to admit. But admit I must. For this is MY life now.