Just picking apart my random thoughts....  I see a car drive by, and I think, "There go People with a Purpose, somewhere to go, somebody to see...".  I drive by a house, and look at it and think, "People with a Life live there."  I seem to be in a holding pattern - the same one I've been in for almost nine years.  My life is defined by "before" and "after" my divorce.  Of some pictures I'm viewing - "Oh, that was before."  Of an old home video - "Oh, that was after."
Twilight, for some reason, is the hardest time of day for me.  You'd think it would be at night, when I go to bed - well, not by myself, because Jenny sleeps with me, but without a husband.  But no;  as the day is dying, so am I, inside.  Is it because twilight is "coming home" time?  The time of day when all the family gathers together again after work/school/lessons?  And now, all the family that is left here  is me and Jenny.  I know, I know - that is not entirely true.  I have (and I am truly thankful for) all of my children still, either nearby or only a phone call away, and Jenny is a great comfort to me here at home.  It is just a stark contrast from the busy, crazy, bustling household I used to cook and clean and care for, with all seven kids still at home plus a husband.  And autumn is the hardest time of year for me.  Again, the time when the old year is dying.  I think it also has something to do with having gotten married in the fall - it was such a time to snuggle and be cozy with the one I loved, and the time when we often took anniversary trips up to the mountains to stay in a cozy, romantic cabin.  But those days are no more.  That was another lifetime ago.  So twilights during the fall I doubly hate.  A particularly beautiful, poignant, cool and crisp twilight in late October is so damn depressing.  It just makes me ache inside where I'm empty.  And there is a whole genre of music I used to love, that I cannot listen to anymore.  No more cool jazz, no more laid-back Norah Jones or Eric Clapton, Unplugged, and no more - ABSOLUTELY NO more Natalie Cole.  Two songs especially I can never hear again - "Too Young" by Natalie Cole, and "Come Away With Me" by Norah Jones.  The tears come as if they were right there waiting if I even think about either of those songs.  And another Natalie Cole song - "The falling leaves.... drift by my window..., the autumn leaves.... of red and gold..."  That song made me sad even "before", as if I had some presentiment that someday I would be bereaved of my love.  I never imagined that it would be like this, though.  That I would be bereaved through divorce, rather than death, the natural bereaver.  It was not that my husband died;  it was my marriage that died.  If it had been my husband, I could at least enjoy my memories.  I could look back fondly.  Now I am bereft of even that.