I was talking to my son this morning about his to-do list for the day in regards to the move that his family is making in less than a week. In the middle of all the last minute preparations his sons are processing the reality of what is happening, as their toys, clothes and home are being packed up and put into boxes. Sammy, his five year old, is feeling sad about moving. Sammy said, “Daddy I like our house and my friends and our town. I don’t want to move to Nashville”. What a heartbreaking moment for father and son, as Sammy cannot feel or imagine anything beyond the safety and familiarity of his home. The loss is too substantial to embrace the adventure that lies ahead.
Moving is not new to me, as I spent most of my childhood and adult life relocating. It is challenging and requires resilience, patience and time to adjust, make friends and feel settled once again in a place one can call “home”. One would assume that my moving history and experience would be sufficient in preparing me for my most recent move into an apartment in the middle of a popular middle-class location in Chicago. However, I feel like my grandson about this move because, it is the final step out of a 30 year marriage and the family traditions and memories we developed over three decades. I am sad about moving. I loved my house, my town, my neighborhood and the familiarity of hosting dinners, hearing delighted voices of grandchildren as they play at Nana’s house, enjoying the position of matriarch, like the nobility of the carved oak of the living room, I loved intentionally passing on traditions to the next generation within the walls of that sturdy house. I miss my dogs. My faithful comforters and witnesses, one in heaven and the other left behind, have left a lonely place in me that no one, or thing can fill.
My to-do list, which has kept my attention for five months, has also caused me to ignore these losses along the way and unbeknownst to me they have been waiting to be acknowledged. Finally willing to wait no longer, I am flat on my back, sick in bed, with no energy to resist and left staring at this neglected part of me, forcing me to pay attention. As I stop and see what has happened in the last five months and the last five years, it is like a release of emotion, which has been held up by a dam of acceptance of all the choices I have made. I have chosen to accept the “unmaking” of my life in order to see and know the life of freedom, love, and self-discovery. I am already benefiting from these choices in ways that are unexpected and surprising. I am making decisions everyday that honor myself and the values I hold dear. However, in this moment of time, I do not want to be resilient, patient, adjust and move on. I do not feel like looking at the possibilities and benefits of this new adventure in my life. I just want to lie here for a bit in the rubble and experience the loss. Yes, I know that the great unknown lies ahead but, I just need to cry for awhile. I need to tend to myself, be still, trust, rest and grieve. I need to honor what has happened for what it is. The losses are integral to the unmaking. I cannot pass by the brokenness of this life and treat them like mistakes or ignore their role in story. They have equal, if not more value than the new pathway I have found myself taking. So I say to myself, “this is good and it will pass”. I choose to be grateful for these tears and the grief as they make me a better person and are necessary for this moment and whatever lies ahead.
I already know I will need to add to my list of losses, the fact that my son, his wife and my babies are moving away from me for a short while, but I also know that they will be okay and I will be okay, in spite of it all. Ernest Hemingway’s quote comes to mind…”The world breaks everyone, and afterward some are strong in the broken places”.
The Unmaking 