stitchwhich | This will be long (Reply)

Some folks may want to click right back onto 'friends' and not read this. I'm serious - some of you will disagree with me and may be disturbed about what I write here. Which is why I have the comments turned to 'screened'. I'll give you the right to blast me, if you feel that you just need to, but I will not allow a semi-public dialogue/argument about this. This is MY view of MY life. Your view may well be quite different. But I expect you, if you read on, to don your best emotionally-neutral robe and try to understand my words from the dispassionate point of view that I'm using here.

My life is pretty much done. Yes, I have family and friends who I love and enjoy being with - of course I do. And it's not like I'm gonna go looking for an end and deprive myself of those people I love. But nonetheless... I have no real driving purpose to serve in being here on earth anymore.

See, here was my life:
Before I was a teenager, I became the sole nurse of a desperately ill woman (my mother). And continued so until after High School graduation. I served a purpose.

I was offered (not 'applied for and accepted', but 'offered out of the blue') a four-year scholarship in graphic arts. Surprises you, doesn't it? But by then, I knew about my heart condition and weighed the offer against what would best serve humanity. And decided that the university's investment in my long-term possibilities would not serve them as well as one given to someone without an early death sentence. You know, 12 possible years being far shorter than maybe 32 years of fruitful return. I turned it down so it could go to someone who'd be around in their 50s or longer.

So I enlisted in the Navy. Gave back to my country. Served a purpose I believed in.
And also met my husband. :)

I became a housewife once our sons were born, but served three terms as a ship's omsbudman. Made a difference in people's lives again.

Volunteered as a teacher's aide all during our sons' time in elementary school, and served as a Boy Scout leader, then added "Leader Trainer and Commissioner" to that too, for about 12 years. Are you catching my drift here?

Edited and published the "Pagan Military Newsletter", which was the only form of support pagan military personnel got during their time in service. As a result of that, I also served as the Pagan/Wiccan liaison for the US Navy, and by extension, the Army (they being the branch that prints a Chaplain's Handbook, where I was listed as a resource for all military chaplains). Nowadays we have Pagan Chaplains and my old position isn't really needed. But back then, it was, and I worked with chaplains, commanding officers, and even legal representatives in order to serve the military pagan community and ease the troubles between that minority and the (largely ignorant of their needs and faiths) mostly-Christian authority.

We raised our sons, and they are strong, smart, self-reliant men now. They are not attached to their mommy's apron strings. Which is as it should be. I love them dearly, and I know they love me, but they have no burning need for me as they did when young.

So now, still, I'm a housewife. And a bit of a hermit. I move about in our silent home and spend hours on the computer, communicating via the Web. When my husband comes home, I enjoy a few hours with him, and then, again, am in a silent house. We spend time with our friends in our hobby groups on the weekends. I make stuff to help folks in my hobby group, and do research to please myself, but really - it is penny-ante stuff. I do not add oil to the business-machine, help send spacecraft into orbit, work endlessly to save the environment, or do the things that make the greater world run a little better, a little wiser, a little easier. I have, in fact, diminished.

And on the other side of that dark curtain ahead of me, there is a new wonder waiting. That wonder requires that I give up being with the people I love here and now, so I am content to bide and not rush towards it... but I am aware that my time of usefulness to the world is past and I really don't have anything to add to it. I will not grieve too much if the time should come when I must pass through that curtain and find a new purpose.