I am turning sixty three in twenty days.

I live in Belize. I am retired, I volunteer at a cat sanctuary, I visit friend’s a couple days a week and try to stay out of soul destroying distractions on my days off.

I feel just as lost as I did when I was thirteen. Where have I gone wrong? I see the images of happy people and I know they are not the truth most of the time, or they encapsulate a moment. I think mostly we are walking around putting on a show. I can often feel myself drowning in an obsidian pool of loneliness, even though I have friends that I visit often.

Is this what there is? A time of opposing struggle and contendedness, or in the middle somewhere? It is, because it is what I have lived, enjoyed and endured. I create with food. I love my friends and cats. Do I love myself? That is a question that has no meaning to me. I was never enough for my father and I have never allowed myself to be enough for me.

I am always one slip away from losing it all! That is what runs through my head most of the time, but when I look back it’s not all bad! Some regret, sure. The job of not letting the regret swallow the good in morose indulgence is the challenging part.

I was brave and adventurous enough to drive five thousand five hundred kilometers to Belize, across 2 international borders, because I made connections with people here, something I never had at home.

I can’t blame others for that. Mostly l was afraid of being rejected, so I never extended myself much. Here I extended my being and have not been rejected, yet still I feel empty and with no purpose.

I am going to start writing to see if that will help me find my way through the jungle of my mind. I will continue to meditate, stretch and feed myself healthy food(mostly). I will try to be less judgemental and continue to give others grace and hopefully some for myself.