It is the start of May. Someone said last week that a fourth of the year had already gone by. We all found that horrible! What have I to show for those past months? Not to others but to myself. I feel like I haven’t really done much. Traveled to and fro to Geneva, made meals, washed clothes, saw friends, weeded the herb garden.

Our lives are like a shadow, a flower that withers, a mist. All fleeting images, temporary, short, ethereal. And yet sometimes it feels soooo long, especially when you’re waiting for someone or something, news from the universities you applied to, results from the biopsy of that lump in your breast, money to pay the bills, your son’s return.

And you’re supposed to keep on going like nothing’s the matter. No, better yet, you’re supposed to keep giving your best. How do you do that? How do you make abstraction of everything that’s crying out in you to persevere in the day-to-day? Sometimes I wish God had made us robots, then we wouldn’t have trouble functioning, although I guess robots do malfunction or stop working altogether, too. But they don’t have feelings.

Feelings are messy. Have you ever done something which you regretted and even though you know God has forgiven you, you can’t forgive yourself? It just keeps coming back to your mind, like a bee droning and droning. How do murderers and pedophiles and rapists live with themselves? I’m not saying I’m better than them. There but for the grace of God go I. But if I can’t forgive myself, how can they? Or is that where compartmentalization and rationalization come in?

We are such complex beings and when something goes out of whack, the system, the body, the conscience, the heart, the whole being tries to adjust to the new experience, the new data. We come out either blasé, hard and cynical or we’re crushed and devastated.

56, I am 56 years old. 57 in September. Has my life counted? I am a steward of the time, talents and resources that have been given me. That includes my son. He is not mine, but God’s. How have I done? How am I doing? At 19 and away on his military service, he never stops being my son.

It is so easy to make him the be all and end all of my life. That is a trap. Since being a good mother is important and is respected, it is easy to think that everything I do for him is good and the line between caring and clinging becomes very fine. Too fine.

My husband, wise man that he is, said that I must let go. I know but I don’t know what that looks like. Yes, I know I shouldn’t do his laundry when he comes back from his military base, although my heart says, “Poor thing.” I’m doing better and so is he. He doesn’t bring them home to wash anymore. Just to dry, because he was running out of time. Hey, that counts! Every small step counts.