Peace. Just plain old garden variety peace.
Living in a no-criticism zone, 24/7, instead of a berate/attack/criticize/demean/belittle/demoralize ShootingStar1 24/7 zone.
I can watch TV IF I WANT TO and no one yells at me repeated because I didn't fast forward the TV controller quickly enough.
A 3 hour per day Wolf Blitzer-CNN news- free zone. And, along with that, a disaster-free zone from not having to see hours of coverage and violent pictures of wars, natural disasters, you name it.
Never having to watch Law and Order reruns again in my life. When I write this, I still hear that musical riff that they play between scenes in my head like a nightmare. That, and the sounds on Blitzer's show were part of the subliminal sound track of my life, just like the clock chimes on the hour were.
When I think about it, these start to add up to a violence-free house. What a life shift! If he didn't create dissension and chaos on his own, and he was quite successful at that, then he imported into the house with the TV news, violent TV shows, reading aloud newspaper articles, wow, I don't have any of that violence/chaos/drama junkie stuff anymore in my life. Didn't realize how big this is until I wrote this.
Waking up to a clean kitchen, never finding the mayo and sandwich stuff out on the counter in the heat of the day.
Keeping my beautiful gold rimmed wine glasses from my aunt in plain view, and never having to buy cheap crystal highball glasses by the dozen, yes literally by the dozen, because he broke them so often.
Seeing my little dog happy, playful, shaking her toys and teasing me instead of cowering.
Thanks, Wavy. This thread is helping me see how far I have come in 13 months on my own!
Peace. Just peace. All the time. Peace as a state of being, not an aspiration.
ShootingStar1