Wistful Thoughts of Home

My family has been trying for years to convince me to move back to Ohio. On several occasions I have been thisclose to relenting. Inevitably, something keeps me here in West Virginia. What is that something you ask? I would love to give you some reasonable answer to your question. Things like: a fabulous career, unbreakable bonds of friendship, a terrific home, roots of my other (biological) family. Alas, it has always been about a man. I couldn’t leave my second husband and he refused to move. When I did finally end that dreadful union I met another man. I cannot seem to leave him and he is unwilling to uproot from his family. I don’t hold that against him.

Writing this blog has made me incredibly homesick. Memories of being young and carefree surrounded by loving family and friends have punctuated my every thought as of late. Writing has brought me closer to my family and yet I feel distanced from them. If only my muddled, mixed-up brain could finally make a decision and stick to it. I want to leave, I want to stay, I want someone else to make the decision for me. Why is it so damn difficult? What keeps me with a man and away from my family? I know how to be alone and not feel lonely. I am sure that I am able to brave the world without a man next to me. I am not really a love-craving, sex-starved, middle-aged woman.

Okay, so maybe I am all of those things. Okay, so maybe I appear more confident than I am inside. Perhaps I am just the teenager that longed to be loved and accepted. Unfortunately, I continue to search for fulfillment with the absolutely wrong men. Men that cannot, or will not, accept me for the person I truly am. The woman, who, at times, lives too hard, laughs too hard and loves too hard. Just to keep from dying too much, crying too much and hating too much!