This is the first time since before Christmas I’ve had to myself.  I love Joel and Emma being home and how now my kids are around so much more than they were for a long time, but I also like my quiet alone times. Where I can write, reflect and all those things I do when I am alone.  I have my meditation music playing, and other than the washer in the background washing sheets and towels from Joel and Emma being here, there is no noise.  Ahhhhh…………………..a sweet sound to me after days and days of the opposite.

I’ve enjoyed being around Drew so much the past week.  Even if we all were sick, Drew was a joy to have.  He’s grown so much!  We all laid pretty low last night as Dell talked Emma and I into watching, “The Gangs of New York.”  Okayyyyy…………..now I know why Dell and I typically don’t watch TV together, movies, or any of that!  He thought this movie was awesome and requested it for Christmas!  Emma and I were half sick through the whole movie because of its grotesque violence.  Luckily I kept dozing off and on, my plague still dragging me down.  Unfortunately I seemed to wake up during the violent scenes. *sighs*  I guess it was considered family time or something. I was glad Drew was overly tired last night and went to bed early.  No way would I let him watch this and I know his mommy would be more adamant about it than I was!

Dell’s been working non-stop on the rental which is rented now, the new God-sent people (I do believe this) due to move in on the 1^st.  Jason has been coming faithfully to help him do some pretty icky stuff.  How sweet is that?  It’s kept Dell occupied over what is supposed to be his vacation.  Sometimes I wonder why he procrastinates to the last minute on things that need done, but I won’t question it. I’m just glad he’s doing it, and Jason is here to help.

I worked yesterday and struggled let me tell you! I felt so rotten!!  But I am not one to stop unless I just can’t stand it.  I figured it was probably quieter at work than home with everyone here.  In a way I was right, tho it would have been nice to just be home and in sweats.  Jane and I left to have lunch which we never do.  It was actually really nice to get away in the middle of the day.  So which do I like best? Getting off at 3:00 or taking an hour off to go have lunch?  Hmmmmm????

Today I had off. I tried to keep Drew occupied while Joel and Emma packed up to head to Jason and Susie’s house.  He and I danced to the 70s satellite station, The Beatles, “While My Guitar Weeps” being the first song that came on.  A real psychedelic experience for the little guy I’m sure!!  Daddy is the Pastor and I’m sure they don’t turn music as this on much.  Oh well, what are Mee Maws for if not to introduce them to new experiences? *laughs*

Once they were gone Jason, Dell and I went for a nice lunch. It’d been a long time since it was the 3 of us.  Jason’s life is soon to change with his own baby on the way. Grandchild #4 for me.  Hey I had my kids very young, and very close together, especially with twins born 17 minutes apart, can you get much closer together?  Why wouldn’t the next generation happen the same way?  We thoroughly enjoyed lunch as we talked music, and memories and the excitement of baby girl on the way.  The name remains a secret.

After that, still feeling pretty icky I came home and started cleaning after having another houseful.  I finally collapsed tho for awhile.  I’m really feeling draggy. I’m sure it’s because I’m not sleeping well at night as I cough all the time. 

Tomorrow is it for 2008.  I find that so hard to believe! Years past December 31 was always my very spiritual day.  I would lock myself up for hours and seek God. I’d ask Him what He wanted me to do in the new year, and then I would petition Him what I would like from Him.  When I write that out I realize you pretty much probably shouldn’t ask God for anything, but when you have this relationship with Him that I feel I do, it’s like you talk to each other and you’re honest.  I LOVED these times, and would write them all out in journals.  What God was saying to me, and what I was saying to God.  Usually, the things He told me were to come were pretty accurate that next year.

But things change.  When I worked at the school I was ALWAYS off on December 31!  It gave me the whole day to do this, now I find I will have to work tomorrow. Only from 7-11am, but then Dell and I are having lunch with Jane and her hubby.  Then tomorrow night we will bring in the new year the way I always do, with Jan and Dave.  All of my new years have been brought in with Jan from my earliest memories.  Perhaps I will get time with God in between lunch and dinner?

I find myself also reflecting over the past year tonight.  What did I accomplish in 2008?  You know, I think 2008 was more a year for me to simply reflect.  I didn’t accomplish too much, and find myself tonight realizing how much time I wasted.  In a lot of things.  I think 2008 was a hard year for me.  But I also think I saw some huge successes in 2008 as well.  I think I learned a lot.

Without a doubt the most important lesson I learned was late in the year when I discovered the one I called Soul Mate (and quietly still do) got married.  Talk about lessons!  I had to quiet my spirit SO much with this one!   But I grew through it, as I learned so much! Perhaps I wasn’t really “obsessed” with this man, but truly shared love with him.  Why would I say that?  Because I think obsession would have caused me to fall apart, be angry, hate him, hate myself for not “making” it happen.  But I didn’t. In some sort of unexplainable way I felt as if I understood.  And knowing a little of “him,” I felt as if perhaps I had helped him believe in love again, as he brought that gift to me too;  just by looking in my eyes.  So 2008 will be the year I remember this.

As I continue to reflect this time of year, and now that I have a moment of quiet in my world, I think about something I read today. I am an avid reader of NDEs. (Near-Death Experiences) I came across a new one today that absolutely has me thinking over and over about what I read!  This guy was dead for 7.5 minutes in a hospital.  Clinically dead!  He went to heaven.  He was greeted by family members!  But he wasn’t allowed to go past the final gate that leads you into the kingdom.  There was apparently an outside area.  He also met Jesus.  Jesus taught him a lot of things in his 7.5 minutes there, tho he swears he was there for a day and a night.  I happen to believe there is no time in the spirit so 7 minutes or 24 hours earth time feel the same!  One of the things Jesus taught him was there are different levels of heaven.  Now Biblically I’m not sure where this is, but he has my attention because he is talking with Jesus!  How is it determined which level you go to?  It is according to doing the work and assignment you were sent to earth to accomplish.  It was interesting to me because Jesus explained that when we are about 12 or 13, that is when He opens up our memories to what it is we agreed to do. What you have ambition to do at that age is probably what you were sent here to accomplish, but as this guy says the reason he didn’t do what he was meant to do, even tho he always wanted to, was because his dad convinced him he couldn’t do it and shouldn’t do it!  He was meant to be a pastor, but his dad told him there was no money in it! *Sounds like so many of us, our well-meaning parents worried about our futures, talked us out of our childhood dreams, which probably aren’t dreams at all, but memories* It was explained to him that there is this book of our eternal lives, and the part where we come to earth to fulfill what we are supposed to is studied before we come here.  When you get back to heaven if you accomplished it, you go to a higher level.  If not, there are lower levels, but they are incredibly beautiful too.  He was given a choice,  to come back or stay.  If he stayed he’d be in a lower level because he had not accomplished his purpose yet.  I was just absolutely enthralled by what I was reading because I SWEAR that I have a memory of a promise I once made to Soul Mate!  All this time I have tried to just make it some sort of vain imagination thing I’ve had going, but what if it isn’t?  What if we really did make this promise to one another?  What was that promise?  To help one another find our way back to the light and that we’d find one another even tho we were separated.  With a lot of help from above that did happen.  And I write, he reads, I know he’s here which encourages me to continue growing spiritually, he helps me, and I share with him what I learn which might help him understand love more?

So as I pondered this today I really began to understand that for so long I kept believing the only “real outcome” of me meeting him could be for us to be together!  But now I finally get it, it was something MUCH bigger, and I finally understand what expectations are!  I no longer have them! I am happy for him that he has love in his life. I am happy for me that I have not broken the rules to have my own way to try to be with him, I am happy that we have found a way to share something so special, and yet, live life where it has us.  Perhaps I learned more in late 2008 than I realized?

More than this beautiful understanding I came to today, tonight I feel so close to God. Do we take heaven for granted on this earth? Does it seem so far removed from us that we are never going to arrive there?  I don’t, or I don’t think I do. I think about it a lot. I came to this conclusion in the late 80s or early 90s. This is just a journey where everything is constant change.  Everything I knew from 18-42 suddenly changed!  I look around today to the new landscape that surrounds me and all these new “souls” in my life, part of my family and I’m the “grandma.”  Yet, inside I still feel 25.  Change!  It never stays the same because it is on-going and very short-lived when we look back.

Here’s another experience this guy had too; when he got to the gate he didn’t realize at first it was Jesus greeting him.  Jesus opened this book that had columns and columns of names.  He went through the first column, then the second column. On the third column about half-way down this guy’s name was written.  He suddenly became aware then that this was the book of life, and that there was already an appointment set.  The day he would be born was documented, and the day he was to return was documented.  Only, this was an awakening of some sort for him, where he got to choose to stay or return.  I’m not sure how that fits in, but God is God so I won’t question. What I began to understand is that it is already designed. We have XX amount of days on this earth, and when it is time to go home, our appointment to return, we go.  There’s so much to this I need to think about and meditate upon. 

And I feel I am just rambling on!  So much information I feel I was given today that rings so true within my spirit I am trying to make it all fit………without much meditation time!  Therefore, I think I will head to the hot tub, something I’ve not been able to do in quite a few days!  I will sit under that stars and I will begin the process of asking the Father what it is I am to do now.  What does He need from me in 2009?  And you know, I would ask certain things of Him but at this point in time I feel as if I want to just totally surrender to Him and let Him do all the guiding.  But of course I am sure I will ask one simple request because I do believe that this is one thing I once promised to do, and that is to ask God to surround “him, my soul mate”  with the most divine love and peace to lead him back to the light.  So yeah, that will be the one request I will have.  And the rest, guide me on Father for I am on a journey far from my home, and need your light to guide me all the days of my life. Thank you.

As the faith, love, and light lead me on.

Goodnight,

Sunshine

*Note to Dee:  Thank you once again for such a beautiful comment the other day!! I'm SO glad you watch the videos! Yes, they are shared from my heart for so many reasons!!!  You sort of started this when you left me the Glen Campbell song, "If You're Still Within The Sound of My Voice."  I'm SO glad you're back!  I missed seeing you here!!!

Goodnight SM: *soulmate*  Okay, so perhaps I shouldn’t call you that for not wanting to offend your wife, but then I think we all have many soul mates in our lives for many different reasons. And from what I read today we will all be together again when we are reunited back in that place we come from.  So I have decided it’s okay to call you SM.  I sort of like that anyway. I wrote what you’re about to read someplace else earlier tonight as I reflect over another year beginning without you “in” my life, even tho I feel you are more in my life than I ever realized before.  It’s my heart and what I feel when I reflect over knowing you for so very long:  I still use the word twin when I write, perhaps it is because it is what I’ve come to know. It is what it is………with all my heart I believe it to be. I want to share it with you…………

I met my twin in February, 2001. He was single, I was married 25 years that year. Our story is crazy and out of the box. I tried so many times to leave my marriage to be with him but was always stopped. Some would say that if I really wanted to leave I would have, but my life circumstances never allowed it without hurting so many people I cared about to follow where my heart ached to be. My twin finally stopped having direct contact with me after about 2 years. He never wanted to interfere and I respected him for that. I did however begin a website on-line journal, shared the site with him, and he has been my most faithful reader for a lot of years now. Without having contact, we meet one another everyday. It's like we don't break any rules, yet the love remains so real.

As the new year approaches, and I sit here and reflect back over the past almost 8 years now, I can see how I always believed the next year I'd be free. This was the year I would become single and he and I would find one another again, but as all the other years, life's circumstances would interfere. I often felt akin to "George Baily" of famed, "It's A Wonderful Life." No matter how many times he tried to leave, he never was able to as "something" kept him where he was. It was happening to me over and over.

Recently, I discovered that my twin got married. And yet, everyday he comes and continues to read all that I write to him. I do find myself having a hard time writing because I don't want to interfere with his marriage. Yet, this draw of he and I is still so strong for me that in my heart I know I must continue. Like this is my life's purpose or something, or it is an agreement we made so long ago.

When I first discovered he was now married I was so hurt. Only because I was so envious of her. I wanted to be her! But now. I'm okay with it. He has to live his life. He was single for so many years...................in a world of fame he had all the women he wanted, and I always thought he cherished his "freedom." He even one time told me he was the "single guy." What happened? Perhaps my writing to him of love and light everyday and all those things I said to him through the years awakened him to the fact he really did need love in his life? Perhaps I helped him to believe in love again? Perhaps I help him to still believe in love as he helps me believe in love beyond anything I have ever known.

What I am saying is that meeting your twin most of the time is NOT about walking off hand in hand in love. It's about the gifts you will awaken in one another, sometimes from a far distance as my twin and I do. You can very much have a beautiful relationship with another, and learn all from that life that you can.

I think my husband has given me the best advice from all of this. My husband has been well aware of my story since day one, and was with me when I met my twin. Hubby always said that twin and I shared something very special, as he could see it for himself from the moment we met. His advice to me was, "Sunshine, if this is a twin thing as you believe, then it is from the past. You have to live where you are today." He was right. If my twin and I were meant to be together in this life, it would have happened, or if we are meant to be together, it will happen. Until then I believe we have been so blessed to touch one another in a very beautiful way. I'm SO glad that he's found love in his life....................and I'm so glad that we both realize we can still touch, and yet live life where we are.

No expectations on this journey will open more doors for you than you will ever imagine. You just never know what tomorrow will hold.

And SM……………this is my gift to you for the new year.  A promise that I will always be here for you, if no more than to help you find your way back to the light where I DO believe we will finally be! Oh, in perfect bodies at about age 30 again! J And you know, if you need, I will hold my hand out to you and hold yours along the way too. Just because.  Happy new year. I’m always here, sending you love and light.  Goodnight,  Love, Sunshine