Fifty Four and Counting
2019 has been the year of change and currently it is July 2019 and I have turned 54 and my life is different in almost every way than it was a year ago. Although it came in full of promise and hope, 2019 was destined to be a year of challenges and triumphs, fear, failure and success.
In February we were told that - SURPRISE - our oldest daughter, who I help with daycare for my three granddaughters, 7, 5 and 4, at least three days a week while she works, was pregnant with my first grandson. Wow! I was angry at the load it was putting on me, thrilled to be getting a grandson, worried about my daughter, who was not physically supposed to carry another child and not financially in a place to have one.
Also in February my older son, engaged and moved out with his fiance of six months, broke the engagement and accepted a job in Mississippi. It wasn't pretty and, although mutual, we lost an important person in our life that we expected to be our family member. On February 15th, my husband, younger son and I drove with our older son and his cat and our dog to take his belongings 20 hours drive away to Natchez, Mississippi, to a job and house yet unseen, but his for at least the next 18 months. We spent a day there and then made the long trek home, leaving our son alone in a new state, starting a new job that very day. He is dating a new girl and succeeding in his job as of today, but the day we left him and the weeks immediately following were difficult.
As soon as we returned home from Mississippi our home of 25 years, where we raised our four children and made so many happy memories, went up for sale. It was planned, but a shocking reality when it finally happened. Things weren't going well with my marriage either, but it's always been a rocky road. A house up for sale is extremely stressful, with us having to take our pets and leave a clean, unlived in looking house (hahaha) several nights a week so others could come in an be critical of our home.
On March 4th, I ended my official home educator role and enrolled my son in George Fox Middle School. He had been homeschooled all his life, as had his brother before him, until high school. It was what my son wanted and what I knew was best for him, but it ended an 18 year chapter in my life that I don't know that I was ready to give up. I am a well known figure in the home school community and it is a huge part of my identity. I am still involved, as I help to homeschool my granddaughters, but I am no longer the primary educator for any children.
In the first week of April our home sold. Now we had 30 days to find a house, finish packing our belongings and move. My husband was extremely stressed with all the paperwork and contracts piled on him and my son and I were left with the packing and moving things to storage. My marriage was heading further into turmoil and I found out that he no longer wanted to be married to me and that our plans for our future had drastically changed. He wants to move to the south and coach there for a living and I was no longer included in those plans. He was heading into the second half of his life alone and, after our son graduated high school in four years, he no longer wanted to be married to me. Whew. That was a hard pill to swallow.
In the last week of April, as we prepared to leave our home on April 27 and enter our new home on that afternoon, we found out that yes, we would be settling on the old house that day, but now couldn't get into our new house until Monday. Another wrench in the plans that were already taxing us to our limits. We have three dogs, a cat and a teenager. My mother took in my son and I and our small dog for the weekend. My husband's brother took in my husband and the two big dogs and a family friend took our cat. That weekend was long, but it actually helped me prepare for the move on Monday, as I slept almost the entire weekend, recovering from one move and prepping for the next. Now that I look back, it's almost like that weekend was the end of one life and the beginning of another.
In May I said goodbye to my colleagues and students at Heritage Instructional Services where I taught and decided to devote my time and energy solely to the children I care for in my home on a daily basis, including my grandchildren. Also in May my husband received his college degree in Sports Management, a hard won prize for six and a half years of work. In June, he turned 50. I left my teaching job at Heritage Instructional Services to focus on the children in my life that I care for in my home, including my grandchildren. In June we also separated, still living in the same house, but no longer sleeping in the same bed or acting in public or otherwise like a married couple. Families were told. Friends asked questions. Life had forever changed.
Also in June I lost two people that I cared for very much for very many years early on in my life. I have many regrets. I am learning to live with them and realize that there are things you do when you are young that carry great weight, but everything happens for a reason and there will be no more "one more time". That's a hard reality, but it is the reality of the situation.
So here it is the end July. I have turned 54. I am a separated woman, the primary caretaker of a home that my husband has told me is HIS and that everything in it is HIS, but that he doesn't use except to sleep and shower and occasionally eat. I am the primary caretaker of my almost 15 year old son. I live in a house my son and I adore, in a community we love and I am working my childcare business at home with joy and renewed energy. I have had a tough time adjusting to the new facts of my life, but today I can say I am accepting that this is the path I am supposed to be on and that, while I love my husband, we are probably better off apart. You can't make someone want to be with you and I don't really think that he hasn't wanted to be with me for a long time. I believe he loves me, but he doesn't agree with my goals in life and feels a lot of animosity toward me he was having more and more trouble hiding. So we live together, navigating a friendship only after 30 years of married life.
I am finding comfort in my own company. I am learning to enjoy the things I like solely because I like them. I am determined to renew friendships I have let lapse and find build new friendships along the way. Some I have to let go. Time or distance has made them too great. Life is carrying me in a new direction and it is both daunting and exhilarating.
I have built an entirely new relationship with my teenage son. He has grown into a thoughtful, caring young man and is thriving in the new life we are living, although dealing with his parents' separation isn't always an easy thing for him. His dreams are coming true with close friendships, great football experiences before his high school years have even officially started in a few weeks and a new sense of self that we had hoped he would find. He and I were always close, but now we are extremely bonded. He is my protector and my right hand. We care for this house together and work side by side cleaning, taking care of the pool and yard, and making this house our home. He is taking off, and August means two a days with his high school team, something he has dreamed of having for years, a starting high school in a place he loves where he already has built solid friendships and a brotherhood with his teammates.
So time rolls on. I am 54. I am me. I am moving forward - onward and upward. My future is a chapter in a book that will need rewriting. My golden years will no longer be spent the way I had thought, but that doesn't mean they have to be bad. I am strong. I am wise. I am loving and kind. Right now I am focusing on making a great life for myself and my son, but I am also thinking that someday I won't want to be alone. There must be someone out there for me, who will love me the way I deserve to be loved. I have so much to give. Finding that person will not be easy, especially with so much love in my heart still for my husband, but time heals all wounds, even those of the heart, and mine will heal as well. I wish only great things for my husband in his life without me. I wish things could be different. I will miss him every day. But I will survive and I will thrive.
In February we were told that - SURPRISE - our oldest daughter, who I help with daycare for my three granddaughters, 7, 5 and 4, at least three days a week while she works, was pregnant with my first grandson. Wow! I was angry at the load it was putting on me, thrilled to be getting a grandson, worried about my daughter, who was not physically supposed to carry another child and not financially in a place to have one.
Also in February my older son, engaged and moved out with his fiance of six months, broke the engagement and accepted a job in Mississippi. It wasn't pretty and, although mutual, we lost an important person in our life that we expected to be our family member. On February 15th, my husband, younger son and I drove with our older son and his cat and our dog to take his belongings 20 hours drive away to Natchez, Mississippi, to a job and house yet unseen, but his for at least the next 18 months. We spent a day there and then made the long trek home, leaving our son alone in a new state, starting a new job that very day. He is dating a new girl and succeeding in his job as of today, but the day we left him and the weeks immediately following were difficult.
As soon as we returned home from Mississippi our home of 25 years, where we raised our four children and made so many happy memories, went up for sale. It was planned, but a shocking reality when it finally happened. Things weren't going well with my marriage either, but it's always been a rocky road. A house up for sale is extremely stressful, with us having to take our pets and leave a clean, unlived in looking house (hahaha) several nights a week so others could come in an be critical of our home.
On March 4th, I ended my official home educator role and enrolled my son in George Fox Middle School. He had been homeschooled all his life, as had his brother before him, until high school. It was what my son wanted and what I knew was best for him, but it ended an 18 year chapter in my life that I don't know that I was ready to give up. I am a well known figure in the home school community and it is a huge part of my identity. I am still involved, as I help to homeschool my granddaughters, but I am no longer the primary educator for any children.
In the first week of April our home sold. Now we had 30 days to find a house, finish packing our belongings and move. My husband was extremely stressed with all the paperwork and contracts piled on him and my son and I were left with the packing and moving things to storage. My marriage was heading further into turmoil and I found out that he no longer wanted to be married to me and that our plans for our future had drastically changed. He wants to move to the south and coach there for a living and I was no longer included in those plans. He was heading into the second half of his life alone and, after our son graduated high school in four years, he no longer wanted to be married to me. Whew. That was a hard pill to swallow.
In the last week of April, as we prepared to leave our home on April 27 and enter our new home on that afternoon, we found out that yes, we would be settling on the old house that day, but now couldn't get into our new house until Monday. Another wrench in the plans that were already taxing us to our limits. We have three dogs, a cat and a teenager. My mother took in my son and I and our small dog for the weekend. My husband's brother took in my husband and the two big dogs and a family friend took our cat. That weekend was long, but it actually helped me prepare for the move on Monday, as I slept almost the entire weekend, recovering from one move and prepping for the next. Now that I look back, it's almost like that weekend was the end of one life and the beginning of another.
In May I said goodbye to my colleagues and students at Heritage Instructional Services where I taught and decided to devote my time and energy solely to the children I care for in my home on a daily basis, including my grandchildren. Also in May my husband received his college degree in Sports Management, a hard won prize for six and a half years of work. In June, he turned 50. I left my teaching job at Heritage Instructional Services to focus on the children in my life that I care for in my home, including my grandchildren. In June we also separated, still living in the same house, but no longer sleeping in the same bed or acting in public or otherwise like a married couple. Families were told. Friends asked questions. Life had forever changed.
Also in June I lost two people that I cared for very much for very many years early on in my life. I have many regrets. I am learning to live with them and realize that there are things you do when you are young that carry great weight, but everything happens for a reason and there will be no more "one more time". That's a hard reality, but it is the reality of the situation.
So here it is the end July. I have turned 54. I am a separated woman, the primary caretaker of a home that my husband has told me is HIS and that everything in it is HIS, but that he doesn't use except to sleep and shower and occasionally eat. I am the primary caretaker of my almost 15 year old son. I live in a house my son and I adore, in a community we love and I am working my childcare business at home with joy and renewed energy. I have had a tough time adjusting to the new facts of my life, but today I can say I am accepting that this is the path I am supposed to be on and that, while I love my husband, we are probably better off apart. You can't make someone want to be with you and I don't really think that he hasn't wanted to be with me for a long time. I believe he loves me, but he doesn't agree with my goals in life and feels a lot of animosity toward me he was having more and more trouble hiding. So we live together, navigating a friendship only after 30 years of married life.
I am finding comfort in my own company. I am learning to enjoy the things I like solely because I like them. I am determined to renew friendships I have let lapse and find build new friendships along the way. Some I have to let go. Time or distance has made them too great. Life is carrying me in a new direction and it is both daunting and exhilarating.
I have built an entirely new relationship with my teenage son. He has grown into a thoughtful, caring young man and is thriving in the new life we are living, although dealing with his parents' separation isn't always an easy thing for him. His dreams are coming true with close friendships, great football experiences before his high school years have even officially started in a few weeks and a new sense of self that we had hoped he would find. He and I were always close, but now we are extremely bonded. He is my protector and my right hand. We care for this house together and work side by side cleaning, taking care of the pool and yard, and making this house our home. He is taking off, and August means two a days with his high school team, something he has dreamed of having for years, a starting high school in a place he loves where he already has built solid friendships and a brotherhood with his teammates.
So time rolls on. I am 54. I am me. I am moving forward - onward and upward. My future is a chapter in a book that will need rewriting. My golden years will no longer be spent the way I had thought, but that doesn't mean they have to be bad. I am strong. I am wise. I am loving and kind. Right now I am focusing on making a great life for myself and my son, but I am also thinking that someday I won't want to be alone. There must be someone out there for me, who will love me the way I deserve to be loved. I have so much to give. Finding that person will not be easy, especially with so much love in my heart still for my husband, but time heals all wounds, even those of the heart, and mine will heal as well. I wish only great things for my husband in his life without me. I wish things could be different. I will miss him every day. But I will survive and I will thrive.
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