I have quite a mercurial relationship with food. Some of this is due to a chronic illness which comes with a host of symptoms/reactions if I eat particular things. In this country, some of those are added quite randomly into foods prepared for sale or in restaurants. I also have a few people in my family who have struggled with eating disorders, some of which come from negative messaging of people close to them/us. So it is often with trepidation that I approach food, and also boredom with what I can eat. So I have some work to do in the gratitude for food as gift department. But I’m working on it.

Letting go has been the story of my first year of retirement (in progress). So much letting go – the work and the evident grace, the people, the systems. Some of this began long before I walked out the door. Since then, I have also been letting go of other things – a lot of thoughts about what I may/would do. This required that I honor what I cannot do, especially physically (anymore), financially; also hopes and dreams. I notice now feeling just more open and at peace. Most days I am pretty okay with taking the day as it comes, and taking the time to let things unfold. So I guess I am more “free” of expectations, and free to just honor who and how I am at any particular moment. Lots of people don’t get this at all. It’s not their idea of retirement. But I didn’t choose or will the pathway of these months. In many cases, reality simply provided the truths and limitations, and rather than fighting against it all, I let it go – and yes, sometimes with tears and heartache.

I sense the opposite effect within myself. Giving myself the time and space to heal seems to open me to the feeling of gratefulness – to feelings of any sort, really. I have been giving myself a lot of time and space in my retirement, time to just “be” and walk outside, taking care of myself but seeking nothing in particular. I notice a sort of thawing taking place, a little at a time, opening me to what is around me. Like a glacier just beginning to thaw, if that makes sense. Noticing the effects, I have noticed just glimpses of small gratitudes. An interesting awareness.

I don’t know that difference always brings gifts. Always?? That being said, I am not looking to include more people in my life right now. When I retired at the beginning of the year, I made a conscious decision to “go quiet.” I have not sought new people or experiences, joined any groups, added any classes or projects, etc. This decision is for the sole purpose of getting to know myself as I am right now in my life. To listen and hear from myself after years of listening, serving, busyness, full and crazy schedules through my work/ministries. I am not finished being not-tired, or quiet, or listening to myself. I have taken small steps in self-care and -compassion. Maybe I am the person I have been excluding, and am ready to include and to know?? You have been a kind, gracious and safe community in which to do this. Many thanks.

I don’t generally have strong feelings of envy. But when I get that little “twinge” it seems more an invitation to ask myself what it is about a situation or a person’s characteristic that invites me? Their courage may invite me to develop that in myself, to take a little risk and see where it leads. Their good organization may invite me to explore how I might add a bit (more) of that into my life. If I have reasonable awareness at that particular time, I may compliment them on whatever I see/experience in them, and/or ask how did they get to that point.

As a child, I always went to the woods for solace and the feeling of home. I am still more drawn to woods and forests than I can even articulate. I can breathe there, and sense the explicit nearness of the Divine. Oceans and our Great Lakes invite me similarly, but in a grander and less intimate way.

As a kid I used to go to mass twice sometimes, just to hear the ancient music. Music continues to be a lifeline for me.

Being a mother, and later working with children and families – especially those judged or marginalized by church – pure, messy and chaotic grace.

When my dad was dying (too young!) in hospice of pancreatic cancer, I one day sat at his bedside, lifted my face upward, and said maybe the first real and rawest prayer of my life: “Enough!” He died peacefully in the night. That might have been the day I learned what prayer really is. I know it was the experience in which I knew I was heard.

Additionally, being infused with courage when it has been most needed, and being companioned by the people I most needed (including poets and writers) at life’s most difficult times.

Dear Antoinette, I walked this path about 20 years ago. In the U.S., or at least in my state, your attorney/s should be able to ask for a middle person to make these decisions about money and property. The attorneys then are the ones to speak to that person, present the facts and life situations. That person’s decisions are final. I did that, and while I didn’t agree with everything, what took place was more than fair as I finished raising my children and my own education. This took all argument out of the finance/property situation. And it took my daughters out of the middle of these decisions. Once these decisions were made, I never discussed them with my daughters until they were adults, and even then, not in detail or in anger. By that time, they understood that I was saving their lives and their psychological health, though they may have realized that at some level even when younger. I hold you and your family in prayer.