zoethe

I’ve always been the one to say goodbye.

Looking back over my life, I see a series of leavings, starting when I was a kid and my parents moved around a lot. I got good at making friends quickly—and good at leaving them behind. We never settled anywhere for more than a couple of years, until I got to high school. But even there I was good at letting go. I have no contact with any of my classmates, either from high school or college. I made good friends in Alaska, who are still friends, but I don’t call them that often. Even my family doesn’t get the kind of attention that some people give theirs. We talk now and then, but I haven’t seen my mother in over 12 years. I miss her some, but it doesn’t impact my day-to-day life.

I got to thinking about this because of two things. First, my ex is leaving Alaska, meaning that Amy will be leaving behind her friends there. She has been in the same place and known the same kids for many years now. She’s excited, but the leaving is hard. I have mixed feelings—it’s fabulous that she will be so much closer to us, but this snaps more of my connections to Alaska, making it tougher to find a reason to go back and visit people. When people ask me where I’m from, I’m much more likely to say “Alaska” than “Oregon.” I made a life there, I lived in only two cities, I knew people for the first time. It’s tough to watch that connection dwindle.

The other part is that my best friend is probably leaving town very soon. Cleveland is a terrible place to get work just now, and opportunity is calling to him in other places. This time, I will be the one left behind, I will be the one who has to go on being in the same place, I will be the one who finds unexpected emptiness in the places we used to go together. I’m not saying it will be easy on him, just that he will be spared the memory triggers.

I hope it doesn’t have to happen. I hope that there will be a job here for him. I hope that things will settle back down and there will once again be Saturday morning coffees and wanderings through the witchy stores and country rides with the top down and happy hugs and all of it. Because he doesn’t want to go. Because I love him and want him around. Because I don’t want to be the one listening to the goodbye.

This is a driving day. Erin is going back to school and since I've stocked her up with groceries to get through the spring semester. It's four hours each way, and the only time I wish I had sprung for cruise control.

I really, really need the day off.

Helping Jeff through all of this has been an emotional rollercoaster, worse than my own divorce in many ways. There, I felt at least in control of my own responses (and there was always the consolation fuck that could be administered to blunt the damage [I typed "soften the blows," but that was just WAY wrong {g}]). Here, I am faced with two very emotional people who seriously lack self-awareness, and I'm trying to help them stay balanced for the sake of four small children. I'm spending my time talking them off the cliff of utter implosion.

It's wearing.

Pile onto that the 55-60 hour workweeks in an absolute pressure cooker and the fact that the boss is on a tirade/rampage because she's going to be required to actually obey the Labor Laws and thereby get only 40 hours a week out of most the employees (not me; I'll actually be named a Senior Paralegal and be considered part of the supervisory staff and therefore still exempt from such rules). But she's been looking for someone to blame besides herself and there have been several times the actual management has had to talk her out of firing perfectly competent people for minor errors or "insubordination" in the last couple weeks, so it's eggshell-walking over there.

I'm surrounded with so much dysfunctionality that it makes my own life seem completely calm and sane.

I REALLY need a day off.

So, I'm doing what I always do--lemons=lemonade. I have a nice drive with my daughter and then time inside my own head coming back. Spring is creeping up on us, and it's a beautiful day for a drive, and I'll have all the solitude I could desire. This will be good.

I'm ready now. Off I go.