Sick and the Wizard of Oz

Sick of Christmas...
Sick (as in illness)...
And again, EXACTLY where I need to be...
My "Wizard of Oz" moment:   when the answers hit me the other day, I was stunned.  It was like a door of the black and white room opening wide to color just like in the movie.   I could see EVERYTHING.   Doesn't mean everything is going to be peachy... doesn't mean I can see what the future is going to hold... just is WOW and oh as I stepped through it....
I went cross country skiing yesterday.   Scared as I always am when I first go out on the ski trails for the season...  30 years of this and I'm STILL not good at stopping.   Add in very little snow and ruts on the trail, and it was definitely a challenge.   But I did get in some practice... TRIED to practice turning.... and at least stayed upright, lol.  I was out there for over an hour without realizing it... thinking about life and death and how it's all natural... and thinking about how I was alone, and yet not... thinking about being scared of the future... the same as I always am...
And when I got home, I immediately got sicker.  Deep hacking coughs.  Yeah, skiing might have been DUMB.  Buying a humidifier was even dumber, lol.
So I woke up hacking this morning, decided NOT to go skiing again, and instead got in the van just before sunrise (which was 7:30 today) and drove to Belle Fourche, a town about 7 miles away.   I had something to do for work.   One of my customers stiffed me on a loan and I needed to find out where her vehicle was so I could begin repossession.  Today was my best chance of finding it, but it wasn't where I'd hoped it would be.   So much for that, I thought, and I should have turned back, but instead I kept driving...
I wound up in Aladdin, Wyoming, population 15.  The store, cafe, and hotel are all for sale now.  It was like stepping into my past for just a moment, the day I rode my bicycle there and back from our house in the country (30 miles).  Such a cute, truly Western town in such a BEAUTIFUL area.   It was still too early to go inside the store, so as I turned around, I got to thinking about people I knew back then.... how their involvement in my life affected me... affected the X.... I saw a buck standing along the side of the road right at the edge of town, a doe he was following on the other side just like there always is out there... old houses missing their roof or windows... the past still there and yet gone by...
And as I headed back, I took a turn onto the road that led to that same house.   We lived in it for 5 years after we moved here...  This is the place where we got snowed in for 2 weeks and I had to ski to town for supplies... the house where we saw friends had died just up the road... I couldn't see the house anymore - trees had grown up and now surrounded it.   But I stopped on the road.   WOW.  I could "see" everything.... see where our marriage was beginning to fall apart 20 years ago and why... see why he had so many secrets... see the good things that survived until the year before our divorce... and see the rest, like Dorothy's discovery that the Wizard wasn't who he pretended to be...
It wasn't a bad thing.... just there.  Just like those old houses.   Everything makes sense now.   Why he drank so much, why I didn't feel valued, and why he didn't.   I think we stayed together for so long because our LOVE was deep - I do remember glimpses of GOOD things... had he been able to communicate his pain, things might have been different.   But he couldn't.   And so it just was as it was...
I continued to drive further down the gravel road.... over the hills where I learned to hike when I was so overweight I couldn't even walk a mile... over the hills where I learned to climb on my mountain bike... He couldn't go with me then because of his disability, so I was alone... finding myself as I took a break to watch the creek flow between snow covered banks... just like I did today....
I've come full circle.   I can still see the beauty that surrounds everything just like back then, see that the doors to the future are still hidden, see where I am inside right now... exactly where I always was - on my own... standing strong...  
As I pulled into my driveway, I saw also the MIRACLES we had.... the fact that we could actually BUY a house... could afford to continue living here... how he had 20 extra years to live, despite choosing not to... And so I appreciate better what was and what IS.  
When I got home, I'd decided to start putting away Christmas and start moving into my future, but I can't.  I'm just too sick.  And so it sits partially in boxes, partially not.  And so I sit - thinking.   Partially in the past, partially not... Exactly where I need to be.... LATER.