Wow, stepping out of the Twilight Zone took longer than I thought. Are you still there? I'm hoping so. After my last entry, life kept happening. Day in, day out. I got my vaccines when they were hard to catch a hold of, and I kept working. In the quiet. Every day. I made masks until my Singer wouldn't sing anymore. I mailed them to everyone I knew or heard of. It was fun while it lasted.
I had a lot of time to think in those days, those long, scary quiet days. The news kept saying "It ain't over yet" and I began to realize that we didn't know when or if it would ever be over. The chemistry at the church was rapidly changing.My boss and I shared a retirement timeline. We had agreed to step off the pier together. We learned about Medicare together, well- what one can learn about that tangle.
As my 17th anniversary approached, I reminisced about the many stories this job has given me. Many I haven't even started writing yet. I loved the interactions with members, making new friends, learning so many new things, and I loved that I changed the Church Secretary Job into a Church Caretaker job. I stretched the job description like a Stretch Armstrong to meet the needs of the shifting church. It was good, and hard, and awesome and not so awesome. I could see the needs had changed during the Covidity, with a change in administration, several familiar folks retiring,lots of changes to come and one day, I just knew it was time.
We all are experiencing the damdemic- then and now. We have no choice, as we are in it. IN IT. so we have been actively participating in history being made. Similar to my thoughts on what was behind that fateful Fall I took in 2016,I realized there was something significant in this worldly chaotic tumbling.
Most folks I knew had created safety bubbles where they could actually be in the company of someone else and that brought with it some sense of a long lost normalcy. Families became even more important than love makes them anyway. I had formed a couple of tiny bubbles- I spoke to my therapist outside, met my regular Wed night dinner friend outside, and walked during lunch with a friend, but we had to talk real loud due to social distancing and well, let's just say the neighborhood learned pretty quickly about our topics of sharing. Sometimes, when we walked, I'd notice a face at the window, or someone pretending to work in their yard- sign to us a nod or a thumbs up or a shake of the head to let us know their opinion on our discussions. ugh. weird.
I did not have family I could reach out and touch. Time dragged through the fear of the times, but in the places my daughters lived, time was speeding by. The Fall had taken me out of much availability for the births of both of my grandgirls. Three years of surgeries and healing and more surgeries and more healing kept me from being as connected as I wanted to be. So, time and I had a talk and one day I knew what i needed to do. and I did.
I gave my two weeks notice, and took some time to adjust to the changes from working most of my life to not working.
The holidays brought us together with distance and masking and when they drove off for home, I waved, picked up my aching heart and made a plan. There were so many avenues of unknowns in this decision, I was sure Raleigh DOT had drawn up the plans, so you can understand my anxiety and concerns.
Making a change such as the one I was hanging onto meant pulling up roots that had been planted 52 years ago when I moved here. It meant leaving behind friends I loved and places I knew. It meant giving up my penchant for rescuing plants and starting Messy Chef somewhere else where no one knew me. New walking routes. It meant starting a new life called retirement. What was That? Different. That's what it was- Different. All of those things are big things. How could I walk through that? I was scared but for the one thing that was even bigger. My girls. My big girls, my little grand girls, my son in law who was brave enough to marry into a family of girls. So- I decided to break it up into tiny pieces and big breaths.
As in my previous move, I took time every day and put freebies on my front porch, took throw aways to the dumpster, and put what was going with me in the spare room. I sold furniture until I had only one chair to sit in. I talked to moving companies and decided to go with a person from church who had started a business called POOF. I ordered tons of bubble wrap and packing tape. I got my vaccines. and I left the place I had lived in through high school, marriage, raising a family, Messy cheffing, and plant escapades.
The damdemic times were my cover. No fanfare, last lunches, long reminiscent talks. I just drove away and pushed my scared spirit into the passenger seat so I could drive. She cried for me, and slept alot while I drove home to my girls.
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Welcome back !
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