Growth

Every morning, Leah comes downstairs, grabs me by the hand and pulls me up, and measures how tall she is against my body.  She falls somewhere between my shoulders and my hips, and seems disturbed by her lack of daily progress.  I want to hug her and tell her not to be in such a hurry, to remind her how she used to fit in my arm just so, how it was all so perfect and how I never put her down, how she didn't walk till she was 16 months old because I carried her everywhere.  And now she has loose teeth, she's getting her hair done, she goes on sleepovers, and I'm registering her for kindergarten this year.  And how a teeny little piece of me curls up and dies with each step towards independence she makes.  I am proud, but it is happening too fast.

But she is not the only one experiencing epic growth in this household.  At the tender age of 38, I am starting to ask my own questions, challenge my own thoughts, and look to my own future.  I wonder if I have the guts to do anything at all.  It has not ever been my situation that I could just do this kind of thing.  But I find myself on the edge of a bunch of different roads, and I'm trying to figure out which way to go.  And there are no maps, signs, or guides that point one direction or another, or give any indication that I will meet with success or failure if I choose that path.

I have been sent and come across many quotes about grief, and one such that recently ambled my way read, "When you lose your parents, you lose your past.  When you lose your spouse, you lose your present.  When you lose your child, you lose your future."  But as a young widow, that isn't true.  In the course of my counseling groups at Hospice, I came to realize that I have lost my future.  Mike and I had a million plans stacked up for "someday".  Vacations, house plans, kids, cars, family issues that would need to be considered and resolved.  I recently came across a folder in Mike's computer with some of those things written down.  Budgets, plans, ideas, schemes. He even had meal plans written out.  It was thoughtful and methodical and planned and measured, in a way only Mike could have done.  And as I read through it all, between the tears, I thought, "None of this has come to matter a bit."

I recently had a phone call with a friend who received our Christmas card.  Upon reading that we had a new car and were putting a new roof on the house, he asked, "So are you putting down roots and planning to stay there?"  And I protested no, no, no, of course not.  But those were words that required some thought.

For most of my adult life, decisions were always made with an eye to what made Mike's life easier.  He was the one who would have a harder time finding a job or independent transportation, so even if I found opportunities for myself that I thought looked interesting, I didn't apply for them, because uprooting from life here in DC would have been incalculably difficult for him.  When we moved here, I was so happy because unlike greater Boston, where we had lived before, things stayed open here, everything was local, and I was actually able to make some friends, something I had not accomplished outside of work in 3 years in Boston.  Mike had friends.  I had acquaintances.


We moved to Fredericksburg in 2005, although we had both pledged never to live on the I95 corridor.  95 was crowded, congested, the worst traffic back ups happened on 95.  But we came to Fredericksburg for our wedding anniversary and fell in love with Old Town, and this just seemed our destiny.  We bought our house with dreams of a big family that never materialized.  We bought a station wagon.  We put in new doors, new windows, new furnace, new air conditioning, new paint.  There were nights, few and far between, when Mike's commute spanned 30 mile (yes, you read that correctly) traffic back ups.  We missed out on plans we had due to traffic.  It would take us 30 minutes to get 5 miles across town.  One memorable night when 95 was jammed and the traffic on Rte 3 collapsed as a result, it took us 45 minutes to get out of the mall parking lot, with a squalling toddler in the backseat.  I was miserable.  I now refuse to leave my neighborhood at certain hours of the day.  It's not worth it.

There are amenities galore here, lots of history, every shop and store you can imagine, a blossoming arts community, wonderful people committed to improve everything from the plight of the local homeless to the deforestation of the city.  There is an outdoor summer concert venue, three movie theaters, the college where I shook hands with future President Obama, and the Children's Museum is opening in 4 months.  The schools are great, the people are fun, the Civil War is still being waged.

"Are you putting down roots?"

No.  It's just not for me.  Greater Washington DC is just not for me.  The more I live here, the more I feel stressed and tired and worn out.  Too much congestion.  Too high a cost of living.  When I weigh the pros and cons, I come to the conclusion that I just don't want to stay here.  I want to go someplace I can take a deep breath and relax every morning, a place I can look forward to whatever's unfolding every day, even if it's mundane.  A place where people aren't overcome by their own importance, where they take some time to appreciate people and nature and not keeping up with the Joneses and the next great vacation where they never totally unplug their phones and computers and tablets, just in case.  I want to live in a world where getting on the interstate every day is not a fact of life. 

I don't know where I want to go.  I know where I do NOT want to go.  New England is not even a remote possibility.  Although I love Mike's family, I could never go back to a place that is so hard to break into.  So impossible to break into.  Going home to Northern New York holds some appeal--it is a great place to raise children, I know people, I understand the way of life.  But I would feel like I had failed in the great big world out there.  The friends with whom I have talked say, "Come here!  Come here!  You will love it here!"  And I might, I really don't know.  I could go to California, Vermont, Illinois, Northern Virginia, Florida, Georgia, and be surrounded by friends who have found their happiness.  But I don't want to live other people's dreams and find out at the end of it that I still haven't done what made me happy.  I could stay here, cocooned in the life I have built, happily surrounded by friends I went out and sought for myself, people who will drop their lives at a moment's notice to go see a movie, eat a meal, let our kids play. 

A few years ago, I went through an Elizabeth Berg phase and happened upon her book "The Year of Pleasures".  In it, she wrote I felt myself trapped in line for a ride I was not nearly ready for, looking back but moving forward in the only direction I could go.  

I didn't ask for this.  But I want it to be an opportunity to change our lives for the better. I am trying to fight off feelings of urgency.  I have nowhere to go, no reason to change at the moment, no promises that life would be better, that the right people are waiting at the end of a geographical rainbow.  There are no promises that I'd get somewhere and love it too.  I wish I could just start driving like Betta Nolan and happen upon the place I'm supposed to be, and the thing I am supposed to do. 

So I will stay here until I come up with a better alternative.  This isn't a giving up or giving in.  I am actively seeking alternatives.  I've begun applying for jobs in farflung locales with exotic names like Waukee and Waikaloa and Seymour.  I dream of the sea . I dream of England.  I dream of adventure.  I dream of peaceful nights and calm days.  I dream of tossing the kid and the cats in the car and moving down the road away from the drama and nonsense that has consumed and fractured my family.  I dream of sending a card that says, "Landed on my feet in Wichita, send the furniture".  I hedge my bets, get more involved in the community here, join, quit, make appointments.  I have some major, major changes coming down the pike in the next 6 months that will make it very difficult to leave just yet. Part of me will hate to leave this house...

What if I wanted to enjoy a memory or a good cry? I wasn't weaned from that yet; I wasn't finished being with him in the only way I had left.

But I know as surely as Leah does that growth is happening, slowly and steadily, and will continue whether I'm ready for it or not.  There is a future out there somewhere and I'm excited for it.  I'm ready for change.  I just need to make a few plans first.