As I look up from my growing box-canyon for a minute and will myself not to write a post about packing (oh, but it’s coming), I am feeling very conscious of time passing, life being lived, lessons learned, tick tock, passages passages passages.
This new condo business is profound, for starters. I have been a crabby habitué of this area, since the second I moved here more then a decade ago. I will never stop feeling like a Northern Californian, a feeling which caused a significant amount of angst for those early years. Now, of course, I will never stop feeling like a Southern Californian, either, and slowly I have learned to let those two identities co-exist and not to quibble so dang much.
I must disclose here that I came very close to being a Northern Californian again during this difficult year. I almost became an Oregonian, too; I had dead-serious Plans B and C in my pocket if something didn’t give, or if something gave way, or (basically) if opportunity did not present itself here.
And so it did — Ventura County hasn’t coughed up a new job for me but I managed to my mitts on the last affordable piece of real estate here. And so I stay. Finally, after 11.5 years of dating, this County and I are moving in together. For-reals commitment. And it is weird and good and bittersweet and huge.
Lessons are being learned. I continue to learn from my family (both biological, chosen, and the ones in-between), continue to manage expectations, continue to be sad and happy and disappointed and proud.
And so the wheels turn. I have lost friends this year. Suddenly, horribly. And then the ones who let go in the inevitable way of the old. Loved ones have lost loved ones. And then we have the loved ones who have welcomed brand new shiny loved ones, too. Boggling. Dazzling.
I feel the melancholy of the unavoidable “normal” losses, both passed and in the future. Only a handful of folks left who were contemporaries of my parents, and even fewer were the ones who knew them “when.” One such person is my friend Jo Ann who was good friend to mom and colleague of dad’s from — what? — 1959 onward? She and I have very much enjoyed our friendship over the past few years; I’ve loved having a reason to go to Arizona a couple times a year to see her.
And then this year came; she’s not doing so hot; she has some complications from a past surgery and it’s been a hard few months. Still, she was able to email me back after I dropped her a note. She is cool as a cucumber about the possibilities of the future:
At my age I feel I have had a fortunate life and have signed a DNR (Do not Resuscitate) and just let my Karma kick in.
(She would probably like me to mention here that she’s still playing Bridge every afternoon and not to count her out quite yet.)
She also had this to say about me, and my new home:
I can see you are transitioning into the next chapter of your life that is just so exciting for you and the rest of us to hear about. You have always made good decisions so I know you know what you are doing is the right way to be heading. Have fun along the way.
Have fun along the way. All I can hope for.
