Well, everyone is entitle to their mid-life crisis, if
this is mine, I will have to live to one-hundred and
fifty. I had to put my beloved dog, Sweetie down
three years ago, her heart just couldn't go on, and I
knew it was time to let her go. I cried for two weeks;
she was the last thing I had left of my husband. She
was really his dog, and she mourned his passing as
much as I did. Sweetie merely tolerated me, but she
would give up her life to protect me.
When my husband died, I took a month-long trip to
Poland to connect with relatives, and when I came
home, I put the house up for sale, piled as much as I
could carry in the car, and with Sweetie as my co-pilot,
we headed to Wisconsin. I didn't know a soul here
but, as fate would have it , I now have a wonderful
group of friends, and a network of activities that
keep me busy six-days a week.
When Sweetie died, I bought a new car, I didn't need
a new car but I bought one anyway. And not just any
car, I bought a sporty SUV, with a variable-speed tranny,
turbocharged engine, speed shifter, and all-wheel drive-
for the snow don't you know- his name is Spike. I
always name my cars, and this one is definitely, Spike.
There isn't much room in the backseat for passengers,
but then I didn't buy it for a taxi. My friends groaned,
and rolled their eyes.
This year for whatever reason, I have decided to take
my life in a new direction. I have been involved in a
class in reminiscence writing for the past seven years. I
have seven years of memories set down on paper, I have
listened to other people's lives unfold in snippets, weekly
installments of their childhood through adulthood, and I
quit. I refuse to look back anymore, there is nothing left
there that I wish to recall.
I have taken the same four classes in my Senior Learning
Group for the past seven years. This year I am taking four
different classes. I am giving up the comfortable for the
challenge of something new and different. No more physics
and philosophy, I can't do Kant for another year and no one
can explain quantum mechanics, and they don't care, so why
should I. I am going back to my first love, poetry, and I am
going to finish that collection of short stories that I started
writing a lifetime ago. I am going to improve my skill with
a writers workshop. And I am blogging, but I guess you know
that as you are reading this. They say you are not a writer unless
someone reads your work, and I am happy to say I received my
first comment on one of my blogs. Someone out there is reading
them.
But the biggest change I am making in my life is really scary.
I have put an offer on a house, not just any house, but a four-
bedroom three-bath house. Right now, I live in a two-bedroom
two-bath condo. It's big enough for me, I don't need anything
bigger, certainly not twice the size. But if you gotta go, go big!
I spent the morning with the realtor going over page after page
of the contracts, the addendums, and the condition report, until
we finally came to the bottom line, the line that says 'signature of
the buyer'. I guess that was me, my palms were sweaty, and my hand
shook a little but I signed the paper. The agent gave me my copy,
shook my hand and said he would let me know as soon as he got
an answer from the sellers.
So here I sit and wait for something that I don't know whether I will
be sad if I lose or sadder if I win. When I bought my condo, I said
that I would never move again, I said they would carry me out of here
feet first. It has been a very nice home, but I have never felt 'at home'
for years, so many years. When I married, I moved into my husband's
home, it was a nice house and soon I made it mine. We were happy there,
it was a family home and we had lovely family, two boys and a little
girl.
Then fate stepped in and our son, Michael, was killed in an accident. By
then the other two children, David and Ann, were on their own, David to
his own apartment and Ann to college. Suddenly the family home wasn't
anymore. We didn't know if it was harder to stay with the memories, or
leave and take them with us. We chose to leave.
But you can't move away from the pain, you take it with you wherever you
go. That first move led to a series of eight more moves. The houses all
seemed perfect when we bought them, but after two or three years they
became just empty shells, that, no matter how hard we tried we couldn't
fill them. And our lives became a quest to find a 'home'. The kids had
scattered to the wind, across the county. Then one day, Ann called, she
had discovered a lump, it was cancer, stage four. We spent Christmas
with her in Oregon and then, reluctantly we drove back home to Arkansas.
All the way home we couldn't speak of what we knew was coming.
By New Years Eve my husband had worked himself into such a state, and
by his birthday, January 28th, he was gone. I knew he could not face
burying his baby girl.
And by that August, Ann was gone too. Suddenly I had to leave, I had
to go back to my roots again, but there were no roots left, they had been
ripped out years before. So the dog and I settled in our little condo
in Madison Wisconsin, a new start in a new place. I buried her ashes
in the little piece of ground next to the condo. I'm happy here, I am, it's
still not home but it's comfortable. So why am I still looking for a place
to call 'home'? I don't know, but there is still an emptiness that I have to
fill, right now I fill it with work. Maybe someday...
we'll see what tomorrow brings.
I'm just sayin'.
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