Shady Lane

First morning at Shady Lane and I feel…intrigued. Curious. Nervous. Apprehensive. Amazing that so much conflicting feeling unspools as I make my way through the motions of starting a new day, a new identity; indeed, a new life. Simple things like finding my pajama bottoms and slippers in the dark. Petting the mewling kitten. Plugging in the twinkle lights, boiling water for tea and then assembling my work for the morning: a book, my laptop, a box of Christmas cards, a collection of pens.

And here I am. I breath in, take stock of my surroundings. Fifteen hours separated from my husband of sixteen years (eighteen, really, if you count the courting years) in my new rental just a mile and a half from the house where Russell and I raised our three kids.  A very sweet little rental - perfect for me, at least in this moment of my life. It’s small and manageable; filled with light and framed windows and fronted with a tiny little porch from which I can watch the neighborhood cat – orange and fat – scale the fence and hop down to the sidewalk, looking warily in both directions for the cars that zip back and forth.

Inside, my two boys - fifteen and thirteen years old – sleep in their new beds with their doors closed. Their proximity is an enormous comfort. My youngest, a ten year old daughter, is at a sleepover. I am wearing the fingerless mitts my sister sent in the mail as a house warming gift, and I have just turned on the heat (me, turning on the heat! What an indulgence!). Mozart is on shuffle play, a squirrel chatters from the enormous oak in the backyard and the refrigerator revs on and off in a low, reverberating hum.

I’ve got this, I think. Forty-five years behind me. With intention, perseverance, prosperity and well-being, another forty-five yet to come. And I will be…? What? Who? Where? How? When I met Russell, I abandoned my tenured position as an English teacher to become the “Director of Operations” in his chiropractic clinic. A bullshit title,  invented solely for the purposes of glossing up my resume. In reality, I was his office manager. Master of the invisible soft-skills. Essential soft-skills that propelled his business forward into profit and good-will  within the community, but a role that lacked authority and left me cheerleading from the sidelines. And the irony is that I self-demoted! No one led me by the scruff of the neck to take second chair. Instead, I inserted myself there willingly, enthusiastically. What could possibly be smarter than tossing out my Stanford Masters, my years of hard won independence, to build someone else’s career? I remember my late mother’s advice as though she whispered it to me just moments ago. “Whatever you do, Elizabeth, for god’s sake do not be financially dependent on a man.” The irony!

But I catch myself. Stop, I think. Don’t be bitter and resentful. I’m done with that. It does not serve. So I re-group. I can revive my career. I can return to the writing that I love so much, finally get to the second draft of the book I completed two years ago now. I can live – finally! - according to my own design. Follow my impulses, my intuition, the wisdom I have gleaned in the last two decades of being a wife, a mother, a business-partner. I am a thoughtful and smart woman. I have resources. A loving family, supportive friends. I can  - and will be! - financially independent. A self-starter. A self-promoter. Head held high. Wearing my own pants.

I’ve got this, I think. It’s in the bag. And, oh yeah. Holy fucking shit. What now??