It's getting better....but not all the time

Next month makes a year that we have been doing this back and forth thing....John goes back and forth to Hawaii and I sally forth, mostly to the post office, the local ( and only ) grocery store or to Taos. It has been an interesting year, to say the least.

I have dealt with wildlife, both inside and outside the house. I have had an inch of ice on the inside of doors. I have had the shower freeze and moved upstairs in self defense. I have had wild fires close enough that the air was not fit to breathe and no place to run except Colorado...4 hours away. I have had people with backpacks stroll to the house next door and stay, knowing the owners are not there and had to wonder who they are and why they are there. I have slept with a gun in my side table for months. I have had a bear on my back deck who destroyed one of my bird feeders. I have had elk in the "back yard" who are the size of short giraffes.

I have gone to sleep for months with panic attacks...heart pounding, wondering if it will kill me. Feeling the arrhythmia, knowing it could.

I manage to stay downstairs now, when he is gone. I dont often have the irregular heart beat now....just on occasion. I know I can do this...I can handle it....mostly.

Then comes the few days before John leaves and it is all I can do not to drop to my knees and beg him not to go. I have begged before....and I know he will still leave. And I know he must. If there is to be a Jade Painting, it must be left in hands that can handle it and at this point, none of those hands are completely ready. Nor may some of them ever be......so I wait.

And I pray. Someday....he will be here and I will be more sane most of the time.

Please God.