I started walking at a cemetery by my house as a way to continue my desire to thwart the evil attempts of menopause and it’s hideous side effects.  That’s another blog for another time.

I was walking for the first time since Zumba classes ceased at the cemetery by my home, parking on the side of the narrow roads on the upper back side of the property. Years ago I parked there when walking with friends and it just seemed like the best place to start.

There are lots of nice hills with an even path for foot trafic and the whole area is just very relaxing and for the most part you don’t have to worry about cars driving by with the occupants viewing your sweaty body and heavy breathing.  In fact, most of the people there have moved on to another place and it’s just a peaceful space for me to be me.

I finished one lap around and was coming back up to where I started my route and noticed a new grave, mounded with dried up dirt, wilted flowers and a makeshift headstone.  As I walked off my path to the grave, I realized who had just been buried there – a 16 year old boy from the township that had recently passed from a racing accident.  I remembered reading about the unfortunate cause of his death and thought about how devastated his family must be.  His father got him started in racing and the picture on his obituary showed him in full racing garb in the middle of a jump.  I thought about his mom, losing a son in a fluke accident in the middle of a crowded race track. I stared at the picture of his face glued to a temporary marker and I immediately got chills.  The hair on my arms and on the back of my neck spiked and I could feel goose bumps on my calves.  I looked around at three glass solar objects positioned around his grave, not lit up yet since it was just turning dusk.  I particularly liked the glass bird at the foot of his grave.  I couldn’t wait to make another lap around so that I could see the bird gleam.  I stepped away from the grave and back on to my path and began walking, all the while receiving an odd kind of message.  Hearing a boy talking to me, but there were no words.  He was not audible to my ears but to my heart.  It’s difficult to explain the way that he came to me, using me for a message.  This has never happened to me before, and although I was not scared, I was uneasy.  He said, “I’m still here, I haven’t gone over to the other side yet”.  I thought to myself that it was odd that he was telling me that, but I felt blessed that he could come to me to tell me that.  He told me that he was sending signs to a woman with light colored hair, and she was having trouble believing what she was seeing and feeling. I asked him for a sign so that I new that this wasn’t just something I was conjuring up in my head.  As I cornered the turn at the top of the path  I saw a robin bird.  Earlier in the day I was telling my friend’s grandson to say, “hi buddy” when he sees robins in the yard, they’re my buddies.  It just seemed like a neat thing for him to remember me with, since my name is Robin.  I used the ‘sign’ of the robin as a sign to me that he was with me.  The robin flew from the top of one headstone to another, for about four or five stones before flying across in front of me on the path to the other side.  I knew this was my sign.  I continued to walk, continuing to think of this young boy and embedding his message in my brain.  I was eventually up on the back road toward my car and noticed his grave was lit by the solar objects.  The bird was beautiful.  I smiled and got into my car.  I thought about writing a note to the family and leaving it on the grave, but I didn’t want to inflict anymore pain onto their family.  But I couldn’t stop thinking about him.  I sat quiet most of the night just reliving my experience.

I was confident that I would keep up with my intentions and continue to walk at my own pace in my own time, whenever  I needed a break from the people who still walk on this earth.  My husband was running to grab a pizza and wanted to use my car to drive there, so I asked that he drop me at the back of the cemetery so I could begin my walk.  Just as we were driving around to that quiet spot behind most of the tombstones where the young man had been planted, I noticed that there were three cars parked on the side of the road by the grave.  I asked my husband to proceed past them and let me out  a few yards away from them, where we wouldn’t disturb them.  There was an older woman sitting in a chair at the foot of the grave, a man and woman sitting up by the area of the headstone.  A couple of little kids with a young woman walking by their cars.  I didn’t want to look at them, I didn’t want to interfere in their grief.

My husband dropped me off and I began to walk, again coming up to a corner at the top of the hill.  There was a robin on the path in front of me, hopping a few feet in front of me as I walked.  I instantly knew it was the boy sending me a sign.  I was glad that he was there with me, but also with his family.  I rounded up to the top part of the lap and down toward the family, still surrounding the grave.  I thought about stopping and telling them what he said to me, but I needed a sign.  I didn’t get one.  I kept walking.  I wanted so badly to tell them that the messages or signs that they are experiencing are legitimate signs.  I wanted someone to bump into me when I was passing, or ask a question.  All three of the women there that day had light hair. That didn’t happen.  So I continued to walk.  I never walked past them again that night, I detoured around another way to my waiting husband.

I’ve walked several time at the cemetery since that night, and I’ve seen the family there one other time.   I continue to see robins on my path each time I walk through the somber but peaceful park of souls  where I spend my an hour of my day.  I know he’s still here, wherever “here” is.

While I walk I like to listen to music, and this song came on the day that he spoke to me.  I’d never heard it before that day.  I believe it to be another sign, please enjoy:

I’ve been putting off writing anything for a while, because I didn’t want to write about anything angry.

And I’ve been pretty angry lately.

I know what I want to say, but I don’t want to throw the blame around too much.  I guess I want to edit my words in order to be understood completely.  I struggle with getting my point across accurately.

So here goes:

Some years ago I walked into my bathroom and found a lightening bug crawling inside my sink basin.  I remember watching it struggle up the side of the pedestal sink, and falling back down.  I actually stood there for a minute or two thinking to myself, “doesn’t it know that it just can fly away”?  Maybe somewhere in that tiny little brain it walked around, surrounded on all sides by a virtual opaque jail.  It probably couldn’t see that if it just looked up, freedom was not so far off.

I eventually reached into the sink and let the bug crawl onto my hand, walking it outside to the front porch where it eventually flew away.  I stood there, alone in the front of my house, trying to keep my eye on the lost insect, barely visible within seconds of it’s release and thought to myself, “I am like that lightening bug, I don’t realize I can just fly away”.

I stood quietly in the front of my house and contemplated my own life, feeling helpless and not realizing that there is always a way out.  I do realize that, I really do.  I’m not 100% on what’s stopping me.  I have all my excuses ready for the suggestive encouragement that I hear.  Kids, financial stability, etc.  Apparently always the optimist, I wait for things to change.

I’ve been waiting a very long time.

It seems lately I’m growing quite tired of the crumbs I’m being thrown.  Imagine that you are a mouse, and you are just getting by with the few morsels that are being left for you to consume.  You don’t get an entire feast, you get a small portion of what could be a gourmet spread.  You are surrounded by an aroma of delicacies, you get to see the deliciousness of an actual normal size meal, you can smell it, but you cannot taste it.  It’s not coming anywhere near your mouth.  Imagine how hungry you might be with just a few scant bites.  Eager for the next time that a drop or two is tossed your direction.  You start to think about it often, if not every single second of the day.

I feel like I look around and see a lot of my friends living normal lives.  Nobody is perfect, we all have flaws, but how many flaws do you need to overlook before it just becomes so overwhelming that your whole demeanor changes?

Obviously much thought has to go into ending a relationship.  I’ve been told there are a few options:  Stay and be unhappy, stay and live separate lives or leave.  Counseling isn’t an option, you have to believe there is a problem.  Only one of us believes that.  I want to write a blog in the future that talks about being married to a man with ADD.  I can honestly say that I was unaware that he suffered from any kind of processing disorder.  I thought it was just his personality.  But that story is for another day.

For now I’ll leave you with the inspiration for this blog, and one of my favorite songs of the moment as well as a very cool video.