It's over a year since Richard, my father-in-law, died. It was his terminal diagnosis last spring that seemed to start the roller coaster ride: Arlee moving in with them to help care for him and her mother; me resigning from my principal job at Sacred Heart; my own mother's hospice and death; my mother-in-law's rapid decline deeper and deeper into dementia, and through three moves in care facility and many hospitalizations, then her hospice, and passing; handling the logistics of those estates, that is, bringing three lives to legal and logistical closure, with so many threads dangling; dealing with the gamut--those "seven stages of grief," they churn around--of emotions that Arlee, and my sons, and I experienced and are experiencing; our continuing to manage our lives and household and futures throughout, as life indeed goes on; my continued attempt to finish my doctoral dissertation, to look for a good fit job for next school year; and just for the heck of it teaching a couple of music classes to help out at St. Mary's the local independent Catholic high school. That was a long, rambling, breathless sentence like it was a long, rambling, breathless year.
Now, things are settling down, shaking out. I am realistically going to finish my dissertation and have it ready for defense this summer. I have faith that whatever is right--whether that is a position that takes our family to a school elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest, overseas, or something that keeps us here locally--will work out, professionally, for the ensuing year. We are coming to terms with our losses, and also, as Arlee has put it, our new roles and station (we were the children who "came home," and now the patriarch/matriarch "home" that is "come home" to...) in the circle of life. We are looking for the "forever house" that will help us fill that role: even if it ends up we move away for a bit, as has been our nomadic want, it we be there (temporarily rented out, perhaps) for us to return to and eventually retire to. We are looking in Ashland, and suburbs of Portland and Seattle, for the right space and the right neighborhood and the right "tribe."
Life is far from settled, but that's OK. I've described it as reaching not exactly a crossroads, or fork in the road, but as if we've entered a roundabout, or traffic circle, and are just circling in a holding pattern, considering the multiple paths. Soon, but not quite yet, it will be time to take a turn.
We are back to doing "normal" things (as opposed to doing "whatever is next," limping along in "normal" life while doing "the next thing," in care of our parents). In the last couple of weeks, we've been living our more "normal" lives. We went to see a fantastic play, a production of Henry IV in a modern setting (kudos, OSF). We have been to a couple of Ashland art walks, and an author talk, and a Disrupting Hate in Public Spaces workshop at the Medford Library. I've done some re-engineering on our backyard deck, saving an oak tree from strangulation. We've seen Eli march in a parade, playing his clarinet with the middle school band. We've hiked in Prescott Park, and Lithia Park. We've gone out to dinner and lunch and brunch a number of times. I got a new used iPhone5 (the battery on my trusty 4 gave out after seven years). We've watched some nice movies together on Netflix. We sold our Reedsport home, a vestige of our time there, that had been rented once but had been sitting vacant for some time, and thus costing money and stress in upkeep, taxes and so forth; we sold it to a family that I believe will love it (it's a wonderful house) as we did. OK, that's not such a "normal" event--it's not every day you buy or sell a home--but, a move towards "normalcy." One less distraction, one less thing to worry about. Never mind the capital loss (seems like "buy high, sell low," is not necessarily the wisest strategy). We're getting there, yes?
Things are bound to return to "normal." Whatever that is. Because, I'm getting dizzy in this roundabout.
Onward.
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