Gerda's Prayer Takes the Form of Angels

[Rita]

DnJ, I didn't answer yet as there was so much in there -- and of course the many fires to put out when I got home.

I don't know if you read what actually happened on the moonlit walk, I posted it only on Grace's thread. It was an all-night wrestle with God, Jacob-to-Israel style. When I think of the silver light on my skin and on the sand and how I was yelling at God and crying but so full of His presence and the beauty of the ocean lit silver -- I feel an intense joy, even though my talk with God was extremely despairing and did not end with any new understanding or peace. But when I left the beach at about 3 am, the moon that had been filling the world went behind a cloud, and it was all dark and stayed that way my whole walk home and into bed, adding to my feeling that God had appeared just for those moments.

Obviously I loved what you wrote, especially the parts that you knew I would. I thought for a while if you really do know the person behind the screen, or if any of us could really know each other. We do put our worst selves here at times, and our best selves, so I suppose we see a lot, even the humiliations in that way help us to know each other. But we are as long distance as many of the MLC'ers and their OP's. Just, hopefully, unlike them, no lies, lots of truths. Even the ones we leave out or leave between the lines.

I am not sure I even want to be the kind of woman who makes those positive lists. But I do want to find peace. Lately the loneliness is INTENSE -- I find it is worst just in terms of being a single mom and struggling to do things all on my own, all the time though it is also for me now the feeling that I am tired of never having a man to love, let alone to love me. But for example -- even just like putting together a bed I brought from our upstate rental back to the city -- I painted it a really pretty color and painted a little heart on the side so I could put it in D10's room. (I had to take her bed into the other floor for the rental I created out of our lower floor so she was sleeping on a mattress on the floor.) And then I couldn't put it together and it sat for days as a reminder that I am alone with no H and no family to help and it was depressing me so much!

And then tonight I finally figured it out and put it together at last myself. She is sleeping on it now. Victory!

But it would be nice to sit here with some tea/coffee and naaimmooooonooanano bars talking about it. I think we should do it but let's invite Grace, SBJ, SJohn and Gordie. And bring your kids, they can walk around the city while the grown-ups unpack the ghosts of MLC-past and build up visions of our futures for a couple of hours.