Onward! Launch Time has Arrived

Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.

Bernice Johnson Reagon

I'm lolling about in the confines of a very warm bed. My husband awoke me hours ago with a cup of coffee, yet it has begun to rain and the drops on the tin roof provide a rhythm that makes being under the covers much too inviting. Besides, getting up means all that Christmas mess needs my assistance to attain its resting place for another year. Also the piles of paperwork hidden in vast recesses from visiting company's view need pulling out for assessment of any urgency long put off. Laundry, grocery shopping, life brought up to date to begin the new year, awaits me.

Before I head into that routine however, I require a more defined reminder of my desired accomplishments for this year - the writing I want to pursue, the perfect resume I want to design for that jobhunt, the time with my youngest son I want to treasure before he leaves to begin his very own life next fall.

Seems overwhelming as I list these items, and I'm tempted to put away the pages of my journal and close the cover of my laptop. Snuggling under the covers for one more nap sounds most inviting. But instead I stick with it for what the practice of writing brings me. By putting my fears, my needs, my work into tangible words, I leave not only a plan on the page, but some of the anxiety as well.

By getting it down, the multitude of ideas and tasks floating like electrons and protons and neutrons around my brain have an opportunity to slow and settle, making then easier to distribute into a plan. The protons line up with the electrons to offer cause and effect. The neutrons float freely to be plucked as needed for reminders as to why any of this is done at all. For me, the tightening of the circular option gives me pause to prepare for the forward movement. A chance to take that needed breath and say, "Oh well," before pushing on into the subjective unknown of forward movement. Hopefully, I take some form of directions with me.

The new year begins. With weddings, graduations, empty nests, uncertainty before me, this will be a year filled with new roads. Possibly many unpaved and filled with ruts to dodge. I hope all my previous map reading helps me stay on a road - most of the time. Or else have the means to handle the detours and diversions with a steady heart and patient mind.

Onward!

On The Road

And that's the wonderful thing about family travel: it provides you with experiences that will remain locked forever in the scar tissue of your mind.

Dave Barry

I decided to road trip with my middle son on his route back to his senior year. One more long ride with mom while he is still under my tutelage. Seventeen hours in a car, all...the....way... to.... Arizona. What better way to bond? He is ecstatic that I've made this decision.

I can't think of a better way for me to end the summer and get back into a new year routine than by walking through the aisles of a university. Get that fresh back-to-school tingle of excitement and anticipation. I will come home to a fresh plate and new vigor for diet, exercise, writing, working, all those things. Right?

Besides, I haven't visited Jordan at school since his freshman year (several family members have taken turns the past two years) so I also want to make sure he truly has washed his sheets, comforter, and rugs since the fall of 2006. (He puts all his stuff in a storage unit during the summer breaks.)

I stopped by AAA to get new maps and guide books as I've decided we'll take a different route than the Lubbock, Muleshoe, Clovis, Albuquerque highways of previous trips. I'm opting for the long ride through Texas to El Paso onto Tucson and up to the mountains. Jordan is most happy about that, too. He can hardly wait for me to look up from my guidebook and say, "You know, if we go down this road 10 miles, we'll find the largest collection of..."

Oh, what would his life have been like without me?

I don't think you get internet service out there in those hills and deserts, so will catch up with everyone after I get back. Meanwhile, put your seatbelt on, Son. Mama is going on a trip.

Solitude Lost?

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.

May Sarton

Sometimes I take a different route just to see where it leads. Sometimes I question my thinking when I make these decisions, because it might have been easier to look at a map. Or a guidebook. Sometimes those resources aren’t at my fingertips, or I have no patience to find them, and my curiosity gets the best of me. Besides, what's the worst that can happen? I’m growing more and more curious regarding this employment venture that begins next week. How will it change my life? What might I truly enjoy about it as well as what will I miss most about my old life?

There is some apprehension--that questioning. At times the old, familiar road overwhelms the possibility for the new. For I’m already thinking my solitude will suffer the most. I get along quite nicely with myself. And it took quite an evolution to get to that point.

Yesterday, I took myself out to breakfast at the Magnolia Café and ordered their most decadent omelet – The Magnolia: two eggs, black olives, avocado, and tomatoes with a lemon crème sauce. I sat in the booth and free wrote in my journal, remembering the days I brought my young sons to the restaurant. They filled up on pancakes or French toast and then we’d head out to find a new swimming hole or park or visit a museum or theater production.

With kids in the house, I forgot what solitude might entail. What it might be like to go to the bathroom alone, read a book in longer stints than three paragraphs, or write more than five words before someone or something needed my attention. The silence of the house overwhelmed me when my youngest child went off to school, but I’ve adapted quite well to being alone all day.

I don't notice the quiet.

My writing and editing, my reading, my denial of housework, and my puttering around at my own pace has offered an opportunity I rarely squander. I’m not sure how I’ll do being with people all day long, pursuing someone else's agenda.

A few months ago, I told my oldest son about a fun party invitation we had received, but that I didn’t want to attend.

“Why wouldn’t you want to go?” he asked.

“Well, you have to talk to people and have fun and stuff.”

He shook his head at me. “If it weren’t for Dad, you’d be a hermit.”

I had to think about that. Quite unlike the young woman who craved companionship and conversation in college. Or the woman who stood before a classroom or in a boardroom addressing business issues to a well-attended table. Or the new stay-at-home mom who stood in the driveway and asked every woman walking by with a stroller if she wanted to be her friend.

I sincerely appreciate my friends and sometimes have to remind myself not to take them for granted. To come out of hiding and BE a friend. I’m thankful for the friends who remind me to do that.

But I’m so good at listening for the door to close behind my family heading out to begin their days, and then taking a breath. For now I can attend to me before I take on anything else. Yes, it should be most interesting to discover what will happen when the door closes with me on the other side.