2012 Good-Bye

I need to say goodbye to 2012.  It was a year I kept saying good bye, but the words never fully connected to my brain. I have been stuck in a circular grief that I have refused to acknowledge.

 It started with the impending demise of the company that Dean had left his job of 28 yrs.  He took a huge pay cut, but the opportunity of working close by, great benefits, and more time off was a dream.  It wasn’t long before he was laid off and the Company’s future was looking grim.  The company went bankrupt and more than the loss of income the loss of insurance was overwhelming. My medications without insurance were over $1500.00 a month. The only sensible decision was for me to take an early retirement. I would be able to purchase health insurance and have approximately 60.00 left for a pension.  I dutifully followed all the rules of retirement, sending my letter of resignation, not stepping foot on school grounds for thirty days, handing in my keys.

I loved my job. I loved my co-workers.  I loved the kids. I was devastated and in some fuzzy state of denial kept saying, it will be fine, I will be fine, I am fine. I wasn’t fine. I kept moving and when my son and daughter-in-law began talking about selling their small house on the lake. I became obsessed with buying it. It was a perfect for us to purchase, small and warm with an incredible view. We would have to put our home of 26 years on the unforgiving housing market. My husband had acquired a new albeit temporary job as maintenance in a factory in Grand Rapids.  It paid well.  He also worked seven days a week.  

I began sorting, clearing, removing twenty-five years of living.  Truckloads left, and sentimentalism was blocked off by the ultimate goal of selling. The world map and early nineties movie posters were scraped off walls replaced by subdued paint.  The shag carpet that I had pulled up so long ago then earnestly painted lay scratched and dirty,  sad reminders of chipped dolphins and earth symbols weeping for children long gone. The toys in dusty boxes, covered in cellulose insulation, rows and rows, piles and piles, of silent innocence, unwanted, discarded with childhood.

 Reality is no longer being someone’s daughter and the knowledge that you have for most purposes been retired from motherhood. Two pivotal identities pushed into the recycle truck.

An automaton feverishly working blocking out the present until my replacement child Maude, my dog from her birth ceased to breathe. Grief erupted as I stroked her fur, holding her paw, as violent sobs wracked my body.  Every mistake, every loss, every unspoken truth pelted me.  

I need to let go and say goodbye to my parents, my job, my house,  my motherhood, my dog.  What a wonderful life it was and so much more to discover.

Greetings to 2013 I am ready to begin again.