Please excuse my tardiness in getting this letter to you sooner. I have bought a house in Santa Barbara and just came out of escrow a couple of days ago, so I am in the midst of packing and cleaning and driving back and forth (three and a half hours to get there from here if the traffic is good). Every time I leave this house, even to go to the market, it must be spotless. I am never sure when the real estate person may be popping by to show it. I am sure a number of you have had the experience. I move furniture around in my dreams and then wake up and write down notes and try to sleep again! I probably will make my move from here to there early March. I will give you my new address when I do. Meanwhile I am going through things I didn’t have the heart to when I came down here from Santa Barbara three and a half years ago. Many of Mom’s things which would set me to crying when I tried to make decisions what to keep, what my daughters would want, etc. My Mom and many friends have died in the last few years and I have had to learn to really let go. Not just people my age, but much younger as well. I also had to put my Balinese kitty down last year after eighteen and a half years of love. There is a kitty that is stalking me now through friends and I will tell you that story in the future. Quite extraordinary when the “right” pet comes to one. I really consider puppy dogs and kitty cats angels in our lives.

Palm Desert is a lovely place to live, but a meeting in LA involves three and a half hours each way, and it is only about an hour fifteen or so depending on the destination when driving in from Santa Barbara. I also miss walking the beach (which I used to do with Sheba, my German Shepherd, when she lived on this planet) and strangely enough, foggy and/or rainy days that come to that area of California.

Moving is really so disorienting, and I really didn’t think when I settled here that I would leave. Life is full of surprises. I know you’ve heard this saying before, but it really is true.”If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans!” I had a dear friend who recently died who had many years of AA under her belt, and she talked about the ordeal of the person becoming sober having to deal with “the wreckage of the past”......Cleaning up the mess of past mistakes so to speak. Though I am not dealing with recovery from alcohol, I think I am dealing with recovery from relationship dependencies. Amazing all the addictions that we mortals seem to have to work through.

So, I am paring down all the “stuff” that I have carried around that has sat in my garage and closets. I am determined I am not taking it back to Santa Barbara with me! I am grappling with all the uncomfortable decisions that must be made. Will I hurt my Mom’s or Dad’s (both gone) feelings if I let go of this or that? I even had a dream recently that my father was crying because of some decision I was making about parting with a piece of furniture! I said to him, “But Dad, it’s only a thing.” How easy it is for us to get caught up in “things”.I have boxes of pictures of people I don’t even know! Relatives from eras past, with no identification on the backs of the photos. ‘Bet I’m not the only one on this planet with this dilemma! Scrapbooks and framed photos. Oh my!!!!!!!!!!

So, I know you will understand when I say I am feeling a bit fragile at the moment. But headway is being made, and I really believe that all the work that is being done now will pay off in the future and the load will be lighter as I walk on down this path called LIFE.