Thoughtful Friday

on any ol' day, apparently

Though lovers be lost love shall not. Dylan Thomas

 

I have been very mindful of endings as of late. There haven't been any endings quite so tragic as the end of love, but then I suppose it all depends on the circumference of your definition of love.

My thoughts are more centered on the prospect of change, or the inevitability of it. A lovely friend is moving away. My husband has been laid off (actually a much better thing than it sounds as it has afforded us some freedom we'd been longing for and saved him from some pretty unsavory changes at his former employer's hand). The boy is growing up so fast, and needs me less often.

The most jarring change - we are strongly considering a move to Seattle. My husband would have said "We are moving to Seattle soon," as well we probably are. I just can't say it that way yet.

After living in the same small apartment for 22 years, I moved to a small city in the NW corner of Washington State. I lived there for a year, knowing is was temporary. The moment my plane broke through the clouds and I saw the concrete jungle that was home (Los Angeles) I wanted to will the plane to ascend and take me back to what felt so much more like my turue home. I stayed in LA to finish school, and then meet my husband (in San Diego).

My heart has always gently tugged at me toward the north. And it's always been in our collective plans to go back. The time is right. It's what my soul longs for. It's what my husband's heart has learned to long for. It's where my son was meant to grow and learn about the world. And yet, it's scary to me to get what I want, to change something so fundamental as the ground beneath my feet. I fear isolation, and disorientation. But, ridiculously enough, I think the thing that holds me back the most is an over inflated sense of sentimentality.

When change is upon me, and I'm aware of it, I instantly become sentimental, even about the silliest things. For example, when my dentist retired I wanted to cry. He was a great guy and all, but come on. So, how do I say goodbye to the home I got married in, the home that cradled my new-born preemie, the home that finally felt like home?

Maybe Dylan Thomas has a lesson for me in his seven little words. "Though lovers be lost love shall not." This house is just mineral and vegetation combined in a very specific manner. The love that lives here is in us, my family, and in me. It will be something that will come along with us. We don't have to worry about packing it. It lives in our skin, in our cells, in our gestures, in our kisses, in our prefrontal lobes where memory holds...

These are comforts, but it will be hard still. New memories await. I have to keep saying that. New memories await.