Lessons
on Leaving
Now that I
am mere days away from moving, I am ready to reflect on the lessons I’ve
learned about leaving. And they have been, for better or worse, a learning
experience in hope, fear, love and loss.
This journey
began close to two years ago when my husband left, lost, and stayed too long at
a job he once loved. My husband is nothing if not extremely resilient and
never, ever have I seen him become defeated – not when he began a new job
search, not when his job coach died in the midst of his search, not when his
wife again and again and again broke down in fear.
On a
Thursday, five months after his former job ended, Tom was offered a new job in
a new city; they wanted him to start on Tuesday. He was in his truck on his way
home from a second interview when he called to tell me. I couldn’t speak for
the words caught in my throat. “Tuesday? They want you to start on Tuesday?”
A day
earlier, a normal Wednesday, I was securely living my life with my husband
nearby and I had grown used to his company. Then he moved away.
But a short
time later I had one son home and then two and I relished playing the
stay-at-home mom to my beloved boys, minus carpools and powerlifting meets and
dinners strung together with tape and glue. They were company when I needed it
and help when I asked for it, but when the days grew shorter and boxes piled
higher, I knew the end of my last summer in this home was coming to an end.
As Son
Number One drove away in his car and Son Number Two was driven away by his
dad’s side I watched with one little dog in my arms and another sitting
obediently by my side.
Life is loss
and though I have likely been spared much more than most, each time there is a
little and a little more, I cling a little more tightly to what is left. And
just as me, and what I felt I had left, were finished adjusting to just the
three of us: small dog, big dog and me, big dog died. But not before biting me
and taking with him not just a part of my ear but another chunk of what was
left.
I rebounded
just a bit and people swooped in on me and called me “resilient” and “brave” and
“full of courage.” That’s what people do when they see you struggle but regain
your footing sometime later.
As 2015
turned to 2016 I chose a word for my new year and it was “do.” First on my list
of to-do’s, and, lately, it seems like the last thing as well, is packing.
Because when you are making a move there is stuff to pack and clean and change
and push and shove out a quickly-closing door.
And so
finally, now that people are asking me exactly when it is I am moving I am
finding that it feels a little like I am already gone. Because a year ago I let
my fear and loss, bury my hope and love. When I am afraid people will leave me
or pull away, it’s easier if I just do it myself. And so I did. Because I don’t
like to linger because it hurts too much and I am always sure that I know what
will happen and that it won’t be good.
Former City
Girl, meet Country Girl. I am always free to take what I’ve lost and make it
something new. We all are. So here I go moving from a non-acre home to more
than 60 acres with a home built just a wee bit on the rustic side with logs
lining my living room and stone stretching to the ceiling.
I can be no
more lost or lonely on lots of land than I am on little land. When hope and
love seems hard to find and accept and draw through the blood-filled veins of
your life, it’s the same no matter where you live. Do a new thing, do the thing
I don’t think I can do. New thing, hard thing, thing I need to learn to do,
here we go….