Two In One

One

My busy week was followed by a sick week. Went to the chiropractor again last Monday and came out feeling suddenly congested. Returned home from work on Tuesday and went right upstairs to bed. Thought I was fighting a sinus infection/allergies. Went to work Wednesday all the time wanting to pull over and go to sleep on the side of the road. Stayed the day even though I felt like I should have stayed home. Started coughing Wednesday evening... Tested positive. (insert eye roll.) Slept most of Thursday, was much better by Friday, went to the parade on Saturday where we sat socially distanced from other festival goers. Stayed home from church Sunday, returned to work masked on Monday. No clue where I picked it up. It doesn't really matter.

Two

I had a bit of a relapse this week and found my emotional balance a bit off. I was tired, teary, and feeling defeated. Identifying and calming emotional triggers is a continual process that typically has to do with home and family.

My elder daughter's mom in law passed away last week. She had been sick for years and her death did not take anyone by surprise. Still, the finality is jolting. There was a small, family graveside service this Monday. I wasn't given a time or invitation to that and that is okay. We were, however, invited to calling hours at my daughter's home from 3-6 pm on Monday afternoon. I had already been out of work due to illness on Thursday and Friday, and taking time off on Monday was not feasible anyway. 

It was 4:20 pm by the time I was able to stop and offer my hugs and condolences and I had a 5 pm appointment with the chiropractor again. The counter in Beth's kitchen was covered with partially eaten cakes and desserts. I had decided to take a cookie on my way out when a former church acquaintance offered, "Kathy made the cheesecake." Kathy. Sweet, beautiful Kathy... I took a piece of cheesecake with a large, red strawberry on top and went to my chiropractor appointment relieved not to have run into either Kathy or the Cabinetmaker, but the trigger had already been set and the emotional dominoes started to topple...

"Home." What is home and where is it? (I'd already been struggling with this question and had asked my friend Dan, "So is home a place or a feeling?" and he had later responded with a quote from e.e. cummings that "showed up in his newsfeed.") Once upon a time "Home" was on the farm with my kids and the Cabinetmaker. Even though life was far from perfect, there was a sense of belonging. I had no idea at the time just how far from perfect life actually was. It took me two years post disclosure, and a friend who said, "I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you that the longer you wait the harder its going to be," for me to act on the boundary I knew had to be enforced. If I didn't have the strength and courage to take a stand on this one, I didn't have any strength or courage at all. I set a date and started to put things in order. It was agonizing. I moved away from everything that I loved. Later the Cabinetmake would say, "I've cost you everything you loved and held dear," and he was right. Nothing mattered more than taking that stand against the unthinkable. I had to do it. To leave it undone would have rendered me complicit.

So, I looked around at the place I had loved and called home for 16 years. I considered the man who I had decided to love 36 years prior, and wondered how I could ever explain any of it to anyone, much less my grandchildren who were too young to take in the truth, and when that Saturday in July came, I packed the necessities into the back of my Mazda5 and drove away while James stood sobbing in the driveway. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. harder by far than getting married, moving 2000 miles from home, and having a baby at 17 years old.

I came back to my childhood home, but the home of my childhood was no longer occupied by my parents. Instead it had become the home of my younger daughter and her family. It's been five years now since I moved into the little attic bedroom and although it feels so much more like home than it did when I first returned, the slowly healing heart still has moments when it aches and bleeds and longs to once again belong. 

(This showed up in my newsfeed as I was pondering the e.e cummings quote.)