I woke at 3:00 with a headache and, after getting up for my Excedrin, realized sleep was gone for the day. It's amazing the amount of thinking one can do in the dark.
This morning my thoughts are of the move and my finances and my apprehension of living alone again. The past eleven months have been a blessing. To see my beloved grandchildren every day, to have the meaning in my life of being a helper, to be an intimate and integral part of a loving family. I think I'm one of the luckiest people on earth.
And now I'm leaving this secure nest and going to my own disheveled—boxes everywhere, why-did-I-keep-this-item, where-can-I-put-this-ridiculous-*thing*—nest-in-the-making.
(Note to people who love to give gifts: When a person is over age 50, you should just give things that will be used up, such as food or candles or toiletries. Stop giving *things* that have to be dusted or placed just so. It doesn't matter how much you love the thing, to the recipient it's just a thing that must be someday given away. The only exception to this rule is handcrafted mugs. Oh, wait—or really fine jewelry.)
I'm more than halfway between 58 and 59, and my every day is filled with balancing of finances. Needs versus wants. Taking care of self versus pampering self. Why didn't I figure this out earlier in my life? Why am I so stretched now?
I come back to buying the midtown house in 2006. I'm mostly glad I did. I can't imagine how different my life would be today if I hadn't bought that house. Being close to friends made me much more sociable. I dated men—some good, some scoundrels, all life-changing and life-affirming—whom I never would have met had I still lived on the other side of the Interstate.
But I can imagine how different my life would have been, financially, had I either been able to sell the Continental Ranch house before moving to midtown, or had I stayed in the Continental Ranch house. Or, had the real estate market not taken the dive it took.
I'm scared about living alone again. For the past eleven months, I've had a reason to come home at the end of the day. For the next month, my reason to come home will be to the exhausting work of settling the house. (Oh, for a magic wand!)
But at the end of the day, when I crawl into bed, it will be to pat my chest for Rudi to join me, and to lie in bed with my laptop to read my mail or work a quick crossword puzzle before sleep. And in the morning when I awake, my first action will be to again reach for the laptop. My laptop is my Significant Other. How sad and alone and disgusting is that?!
I shed tears for missing John. In five months he will have been gone eleven years. The person who loved me unconditionally because he wanted to, not because he adopted me and had to.
I know my life is as it is because of choices made at each fork in my life's road. I know I can't go back and unmake any of those choices. But it seems cruel that it's come to this: alone for however many more years I must occupy this earth-space.
I envy those women who made good choices. My colleague is off to Hawaii next week with his wife to celebrate their 38th anniversary. Lucky. Smart. Wise.
Maybe it takes a functional (as opposed to dysfunctional) upbringing to be able to make the wise choices, to choose a life partner who will treat you with dignity and respect. Maybe I was sabotaged at age six days, when I went home with the woman who was incapable of treating me in a way to develop self-esteem. And when I chose husband #1, FOMC, I chose someone who treated me as my mother had treated me all those years. And the pattern of poor choices was formed.
So now I must pack my bags again, move to my beautiful, empty new house, get some distance from my children's lives so they can be adults again, and try to form a life.
Why can't life be easier than it is?
The question for all ages.
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