Let’s say you’re 54 years old and have two marriages and divorces behind you.  Your son has gone off to college and you’re “home alone” for the first time in 18 years.  Sure that you’re “okay alone”, nonetheless, you feel that something would make your life richer.

I found myself in this position in 2009.  I had already started writing again, and knew that abandoning my writing had been a huge mistake.  I deepened  my connection with words and began using them to observe and describe my world.  I came to rely on the writing process; I found my voice.

In the same time period, I found love in the person of my husband, Jim MacLaughlin.  Now, everyone who knows me can testify that I am a difficult person.  The years have eroded my basic ability to trust. I have hardened and become brittle around more than my edges.  Being married to me is a challenge.  But our third anniversary approaches and I am hopeful that I might have dodged the divorce bullet this time.

The desire to soften my prickly exterior drives this personal journey of mine.  As I mentioned in the introduction to this blog, my mother-in-law, Joanna, had an uncomplaining nature.  Her sweet demeanor and her acceptance of others lives in her son as well.  So I am doubly inspired, once by the mother, and once by the son.

I’ve never been one to publicly proclaim my love.  Years of therapy might expose the soft underbelly hiding beneath my thorny exterior.  But I feel the fullness of time.  Someone once told me that time is our most precious commodity; and I feel very keenly the truth of that.  A while ago, I read an essay by one writer about her writer husband written after his death.  I don’t doubt that she expressed her love before he passed away; and I don’t want to be one who waits until I’ve lost my husband to tell him, and the world, how much he means to me.

So here he is, my husband, Jim MacLaughlin,- in one of my favorite photos of the two of us, taken during our courtship.  He inspires me to continue this journey.  Because of him, and because of the hope that our partnership gives me, I continue to move forward in my year without complaining.