There was no flash of light to signal that this would change our lives forever. We left our home for reasons I cannot divulge momentarily, suffice to say that circumstances (at least to us) are no longer conducive to a healthy and peaceful life.
I thought all along that we will stay forever in our home of 38 years; I also did not expect that we will leave it without much hesitation, without blinking our eyes. We made up our minds upon the advice of our children.
I learned soon enough that moving means giving up a lot of things no matter how big the new place is; somehow it's an opportunity to discard things no longer in use for quite sometime, a good reason to declutter.
When I started sorting our belongings, I realized how much we have accumulated in all these 46 years. (incidentally, that day was our 46th wedding anniversary). As my husband greeted me with a kiss and a hug that morning, he said:
"What a way to spend our anniversary!".
My thoughts were divided though. While I was sad to leave familiar things and surroundings behind; I tried to be strong so I leaned on the thought that it would also be exciting to venture into something new and feel the relief in leaving behind the baggage of a life that has been. But I was wrong when I thought it would be easy for me.
When I started to pack our necessities, and a few change of clothes to last us a few days until the movers come, I felt like it was tearing our lives apart. I was a walking zombie as I disassembled our lives and compartmentalized them in boxes. I couldn't believe we're doing this, I was hurting and nothing felt right.
Then I tackled the albums. I am a sentimental person when it comes to pictures, letters and other mementos. Going through two big shoe boxes of old greeting cards (I saved before the advent of the digital age) trying to sort which ones to keep, I could hardly discard any of them. I know they are just --cards, but on them were the special thoughts, expressions of love and affection from family, it's like throwing away a part of them.
Our children kept calling, doing everything to console us; in their own individual way they reassured us that they are always there for us and that things have a way of working themselves out; still I had a feeling that things will get worst before they get better.
As I read some notes on one and more cards, my eyes were wet. When my son called asking how we were getting along with the packing, I couldn't speak for a while. I cried when I told him that I can't let go of any of them. Afterwards, my younger daughter said:
"Mom, there are just two shoe boxes, how much space do you need to store them? I'd say, save both".
Then the movers came hauling the furniture out of the house; life like I used to know is slowly being dismantled all around me. When the truck was loaded to full capacity, I closed my eyes, I didn't know if I would ever stay in this house again. I'm thinking that a part of our lives is over. Emotions hit me; disbelief and sadness threatened to consume me as I struggled to breathe and made sense of the unfathomable.
But I didn't have much time to dwell on it when my sensible self told me to do this quick since I was in the middle of a chaos that used to be our house.
I'm not good at leaving or saying goodbye, I'm always teary-eyed doing this to a person, a job, a place or to things I've grown to love; that's why to leave our home of 38 years tears my heart apart.
Recently, while my husband and I hang out at Starbucks; I was still feeling sorry for myself, sad and probably moving on autopilot; I read from a magazine (I can't even remember which one), that:
"to be able to open up and take in new things, I have to say goodbye to something even though it's quite a struggle".
As we now struggle to make sense of all the emotions that threaten to surface, while we gather enough courage to keep them at bay, I know that we can not afford to wallow in self pity for now (since that will only mar our effort to think straight) if we want to put back our lives to a semblance of normal again. To console myself and to keep me afloat, I have to believe that
I'll keep my fingers crossed in the hope that something good is just around the corner waiting for us.
Since I'm not good at goodbyes, I'll just say to our home: "I'll see you again".
And to our new home, (at least for now), Let me borrow the words of Robert Browning:
"grow old along with us, the best is yet to be".
No comments:
Post a Comment