Lessons on Leaving

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….