This too shall pass~

I left my home in Michigan just before my 30th birthday. I had been planning the move for six months. I loaded my Ford Mustang with everything I thought I’d need to setup a home for two children and myself. I was heading to Texas for the first time in my life. I’d been reading the classifieds, print at that time, which had been sent to me by my brother who was already there – in Houston. I was going to Dallas. I had interviews ready for my arrival and a friend who had been there for only a few months herself.

I was leaving my Mother and it was breaking her heart that I was going and taking my children with me. She had helped take care of those children since their births as I worked and went to school with hopes of a career in computers.

I don’t know if you watched the HBO series Six Feet Under or not, but it was one of my favorites. All five seasons are available by DVD. Many episodes are memorable and I’ve watched all five seasons from start to finish again in addition to the original. The seasonal finale brought everything to together and as I watched it the first time, my reaction is still the same to watch it today, the tears stream down my face.

The series begins with the death of the father and every episode begins with a death. The family run business is a funeral home which the two sons take over running after their father's passing. The story line includes the arrangements of the deceased and the interactions and relationships of the family as they all live upstairs over the funeral home.

Unlike many televised series, starring members of the family and friends die during the series. They do not disappear from the show, rather we know they are dead and they remain visible at times to various family members and occasionally speak to some.

The series finale features Claire leaving home to pursue a career in New York, as she drives across the desert the future flashes as the next 80 years pass and all members of the family age and die. We all have but a temporary interlude here. The final vision for each is a visual of a loved one who has already gone on to the other side.

I have always identified with Claire in this last episode as I left Michigan 30 years ago, driving for three days to arrive in Dallas where I created a life and career. My children grew and married and created families of their own and now great grandchildren. While I was gone, time passed and many of the loved ones I left behind aged and left this world.

Two years ago I returned to Michigan to bury one of the more significant ones, my ex-husband. I stayed to go through his home and clean up and finish all his worldly business. I found parts of myself that I had left behind that had been treasured by him in those years. I wondered many times as I went through his belongings what my life would have been like if I’d stayed. With great sadness, I knew that for my own personal growth I had made the right decision.

Now, I am in Texas, preparing to leave to go west. Plans were made while I was finishing in Michigan, I’d said good bye for a while to my family there and stopped in Texas to visit my daughter. I thought it would be a short visit but it turned into three months. She and her husband had been having some difficulties and were considering whether to stay together to finish raising their four sons or to split their family now. This place in Texas is well suited for them to complete their job and I think they’ve decided to work it out. My job here is done although I could stay; it’s not a place that’s well suited to me.

A week from Monday I will be packed and heading off on another thousand mile journey across the country to place I’ve never been. Hopes and dreams packed along with my clothes, I’m traveling solo and I know that as I leave to pursue a life in another new city, time will pass; my daughter and her family will grow and go their own ways. I won’t be here to see it. There will be visits but not the same as Sunday get-togethers.

I watched the season finale again today and the tears stream down my eyes as I once again identify with Claire driving across the desert, leaving her family behind, pursuing a new life apart from them, and knowing that those that passed are waiting for me on the other side.

Watch it~

Be ready with your kleenex!

Chicago

I’m taking the train today, Amtrak, heading to Chicago. My beautiful, darling son is there with his wife and children. I asked him once how he learned to be such a good dad. His answer was that I showed him by being both. You don’t get many compliments like that one in a lifetime.

My niece is there with her husband and little boy, plus her big boy who has developed into a good friend as he reached adulthood a few years ago and became an artist and world traveler. Those don’t usually get combined but they did in his case. He was doing air-brushed art at Disney and a New Zealand couple took an interest in his work and now it’s offered on t-shirts on the Island on the other side of the world. I’m looking forward to a more in-depth chat about how his visit went.

Trains are a great way to travel. I enjoyed flying from the first time I got on a Michigan-winter flight to Florida back in the early 70’s. Went by myself and enjoyed every minute of the thrill. Back then the last few rows in the plane were reserved for smokers! Planes changed and while the smoking in closed quarters without any open-windows would be an issue, a bigger one is the rules and regulations requiring shoes, coats and belts to be removed, taking the laptop out of the case, everything in baskets and then on the plane, the seats up and down, trays, electronic devices. Give me a train today.

Trains are easy. You can reserve at the last minute, show up at the last minute, pay in cash, none of that credit card required to be scanned. Change your seat, move around, and take a break by walking back to the dining card and sitting down to have a coffee and bagel. Not the best food to be sure, but available. I can stretch out and open my laptop or read a book or sleep and five hours later, I switch trains in downtown Chicago.

A few blocks away from the Amtrak station is the Metra station. I get to walk along Chicago River and remember the summer jaunts I’ve taken on the Water Taxi. I love Chicago. Navy Pier is a favorite place in the spring and summer.

I visited Tall Ships Chicago in 2006. This year's event is still in the planning stages, but starts August 24th and they are looking for volunteers. Hmmm, if I'm still in the area...

Ships from all over the world, all sailed into Chicago on the same August morning for the Festival. A few of the local tour boat companies offered special cruises during the festival and my grandson and I were in one of these that was heading out into the lake as the ships were sailing in. Phenomenal day, never to be forgotten.

Unfortunately, it is March and not much going on this weekend in Chicago, at least not that I’ll be involved in, just a family visit. It’s good to have family.

The Courage to be Successful

We often think of fear of failure as presenting the highest challenge to stepping off into a new venture, a new lifestyle, a new endeavor, but I think the other side of that coin is more prevalent for some of us.

Not that I haven’t enjoyed a modicum of success in this more-than-a-season lifetime I’ve been here, but not to the degree that I have a vision might be in the making.

I plan to graduate in a few weeks. I’ll be receiving a degree earned from an institution of higher learning, that only in the last few years became a reality that I had any thought or consideration might be one that I would enjoy.

Leaving high school earlier than graduation, I had visions for us of the marital bliss that I saw around me and a husband I thought was to be my permanent partner. He’d been my first boyfriend and as I continued down that path bearing two children by him, I assumed we would weather the storms and settle into a lifestyle similar to our parents. My innocence was probably typical of the age bracket.

Returning to high school night school a few years later and then classes at the community college to prepare myself for a career that would support raising my children by myself, I saw my highest future, sitting at a desk with a regular weekly salary and necessary benefits like insurance and sick pay.

That goal soon was overshadowed by that of a career in computer programming, and after struggling for a few years, was fairly easily reached. It was a little more challenging to achieve and required a move a thousand miles away from my family, friends and the place of my birth.

But, it too, was soon enough, filled with complacency and I yearned for a higher purpose.

Floundering through the creation of small, homegrown businesses and acquiring licenses to perform various and sundry practices, the plans weren’t mature and the addiction to the money provided by the corporate career, of too high a value.

This century and life itself provided an opportunity for me to leave the safety of a skill that came easily and naturally to me. I needed a new plan and a return to school was imminent.

That was 5 years ago and much has changed in that time. I’ve moved back to Michigan, quite unexpectedly, due to the death of my former husband and long time close, personal friend. I’ve all but abandoned any consideration that I will return to computer programming and corporate life. I’ve been educated.

I received a more than worthwhile education from Texas Woman’s University. My world view is larger and more in depth. I truly can see the big picture. I know how a lot of it works.

And now, I begin to see a keyhole, an opening in the universe, where I can insert the skills and knowledge that I’ve acquired over the years to an idea that has been calling for attention from within my psyche. As I write the business plan, I begin to see that it might really work. That’s the scary part.

This morning I have lots of work left to do on the assignments remaining for this semester. I really must put aside my thought of tomorrow and work on today. I will. I have the requisite self discipline, honed to an art form. I’ll eat, drink, breath and think about what’s in front of me today and I’ll get it done in a timely manner.

But tomorrow, tomorrow is right around the corner and I see the light starting to increase as I approach the end of this hall and soon will be able to round the corner, with full expectation of the light of God that is waiting for me.

I can do it. I know I can, I always have.