I'm changing, arranging, I'm changing everything around me

 Today would have marked my mother's 90 birthday.  I chose this date to meet the movers to pack up all my belongings and get ready for my move next week.  So many divinely orchestrated things occurred in the last 24 hours it was truly remarkable.  I knew my mom would be with me every moment of this journey.  My daughter and I started off yesterday loading up the remainder of the belongings we wanted to go on the truck to our new home.  Today, we met the movers, and I have to be honest, I was a bit apprehensive because of the nightmare that my move from Arizona to Florida was.  So, after all was said and done ironically, we wound up traveling past the first neighborhood that we lived in here 8 years ago.  As we drove down Rte. 27, we both realized how much has happened in the past 8 years and how much we blocked out so many instances.  WOW!  I was saying how this feeling of happiness and excitement that I have now makes me realize that I have spent the last 8 years in a place that I thought was happy, but it turns out it was merely contentment after a time of complete upheaval and pain.  I didn't know the difference because it had been so long since I felt that true joy and happiness to my core. I guess I was just grateful that things had become a bit calmer. It was sad to me to realize that - and it made me wonder how many other people think that what they are feeling is true happiness when it is merely contentment or making the best of a bad situation.  I just felt the tears start flowing as I remembered the last 8 years and how much has changed during that time.  We went through a lot in this State.  We decided to take a drive past the original house we moved into when we arrived in Florida.  It was surreal.  I am not the same person that lived in that house.  She was so unaware of the utter chaos and shambles her life would become in the next 8 years.  Everything she believed and held dear was ripped from her.  Her entire existence was turned upside down more times than I can even count.  All of those memories came flooding back and my daughter and I looked at each other and kept saying "Oh my God, I forgot that"....and remembering these moments was like opening up a wound that we did not even realize was there.  

I could not help but compare the horrific experience when we moved from Arizona to Florida to today's incredible, simple, happy preview of this next move.  The movers showed up on time, the price was as quoted, everything fit into the cubes and viola - it was done.  They were kind and sweet and so grateful for our offers to help.  When I moved from Arizona the movers showed up a day late, charged me an additional couple of thousand dollars, we had so much stuff left that didn't fit - driving 3 vehicles across the country with my sons following. One following like an extension of my car and the other - not listening, not following directions, and just adding so much stress to an already stressful time.  Staying in horrific hotels/motels that still give us a good laugh.  I was so worried about finances, and whether I was doing the right thing by my kids.  This move?  Soooo different.  We left Arizona as a family of 4 with 2 pups - we are leaving Florida as a party of 2 with 1 pup for one.  Next my daughter is truly like having another brain - she remembers things that I forget (like the keys to storage when moving from one car to the other - imagine getting all the way to Orlando and leaving the keys to storage back in Lake Worth---not great)  I don't have to tell her what I am thinking, she just knows and we just work really well together. Anyway, I digress - we both agreed that that chaos carried over for the next nearly 8 years of living in Florida.  This never felt like home.  It never brought good things without 10 bad things following it.  How did we block all of that out? 

As I was driving on the Florida Tpke I was recalling the move from NY to Arizona 20 years ago and the tears really started flowing then.  My daughter was in her car seat (she was almost 1) and my oldest son was in the seat my daughter now occupies.  The memories that were brought back were too painful to describe, so I will keep those to myself.

It really struck me how the human mind and heart works.  I more or less blocked out the last 8 years and

did my very best to focus on the positive and be grateful for all the good in my life.  But damn - there was so much pain and heartache and broken dreams in the past 8 years.  So many relationships fractured and painful endings.  It really is a wonder I survived intact.  But I did.  And I am stronger and more determined than ever that this next phase is the reward.  It is the time that makes up for all the sadness and hurt and shattered dreams.  I feel so very blessed and thankful that God kept me close during this time and showed me time and time again that life is not necessarily easy but that it always happens and works out the way it is meant to.  And I felt my mom ever so close today smiling down on her 90th birthday and telling me - Tina bellina you have earned this.  It's your time and there are so many happy moments ahead you are not going to believe it.  And today was definitely not just a day in the life.

Sometimes in our lives, we all have pain....we all have sorrow

 Last week was one I will never forget.  There was a hurricane set to hit Florida and the amount of stress and fear and just overall judgement and negativity was running rampant.   I usually do not get caught up in that because I just always know I am safe and protected.  But it was really hard to avoid.  I had so many people texting to see if we were evacuating or if our area was safe (which was so nice and made me feel loved) and I was definitely more aware than I usually am.  And then....I got a text from my cousin that they had found another spot on her brain and the cancer may have spread.  Then I got a text that literally made my knees buckle.  I got a text from one of my oldest and dearest friends on Wednesday night checking on my daughter and me.  Then on Thursday ---less than 24 hours later a text that her husband died.  I'm sorry what?!?!?!  Two weeks ago she was sending me photos of them during a visit to New York at all of our favorite food places - photos of her hubby eating onion rings from one of our favorite diners - and he's gone?  How?  He died of a heart attack (something called the Widow maker, how surreal) in the middle of telling a joke.  Wow.

We have always joked that we lived parallel lives.  I was a bridesmaid in her wedding....we always seemed to be a few years apart in our big life moments.  We got divorced around the same time, had kids around the same time, Moved to different states around the same times.  But in 2015 she got married to the love of her life.  That is where our parallel lives were not so parallel.  And now?  He's gone.  She called me last night and I felt fear run through my body.  I truly had no idea what I was going to say to her?  My big thing is everything happens for a reason - God has a plan.  Well how the hell was I going to try to interpret the plan or reason for this?  I didn't have to.  She told me she knew she needed to lean into God and turn to him and that she felt her husband in her soul.  She said "I know if anyone understands that it would be you".  Wow.  just wow.  She is planning to really embrace her faith and turn to it for solace.  She thanked me for sharing my faith so freely and that whenever she wavered she would reach out to me.

I have really been struggling since I got her text - I just could not wrap my brain around what she must be feeling, how she was going to live in their home surrounded by his presence - how do you function?  How do you carry on after losing the love of your life?  How do you recover being a widow at 55?  How do any of us carry on after loss?  For me?  I turn to God and my faith - if I did not have that I do not know what I would do.  At the same time I was receiving videos and photos from my son and daughter in law from their trip to Europe - talk about opposite ends of the spectrum.   I felt like my insides were in the middle of a ping pong game.  But no matter what, life goes on.  All the tragedy going on in Florida and North Carolina - in the middle of people trying to rent homes to flee the hurricane.  Life goes on.  I'm in the middle of a cross country move.  Life goes on.  How do you stay hopeful and grateful and not let things like this level you?  Faith.  At the end of the day that's all we have, and it's necessary to remember it is just a day in the life-and good or bad, we need to embrace it.

https://gofund.me/ea597f3e

Here’s a go fund me link for my dear friend if you’re able and want to help