Since that last entry, DB has turned 65. It is so amazing to me that the boy I met that long-ago May is now a distinguished "older man". We will celebrate his birthday in October in Puerto Rico, where I am presenting at a regional conference.
There is a lot of story between the day I tried my first class in a 4-year college and this birthday. There were so many ups and downs. A big down for me was leaving my farm and my dreams for a Bed and Breakfast in that 125-year-old colonial house. Selling Bambi, my little Jersey (whose ancester was the Cow Who Jumped Over The Moon) was particularly hard. And I've never had another garden like that one. But DB had a chance to rise higher in his profession, so we had to go. I cried many, many tears over that move. (I did get another cow, however, as soon as we were settled.)
I never fit in that community. I was miserable most of the time. Added to that was a very serious reaction to some medication prescribed for me, that nearly led to the breakdown I had always feared. One of the legacies of my mother's mental illness was that I could feel it lurking in the shadows, ready to claim me at any time. DB had a job he loved, but I hated our life there. The only saving grace was that I was able to actually get a degree from a wonderful college. I also had a job that I loved and that stretched my mind and my skills. Oh, there were many good times, especially trips with the kids that I still remember with fondness. But...
So, I gave an ultimatum: I was moving back to NE, with him or without him. Would I have really done it? I don't know. I do know that I felt the only way to save me was to get out of that area. And I had heard there was an opening in my dream school in the NE town he had taken me from (kicking and screaming all the way). This little school served four grades in two rooms. I dreamed about teaching there almost as much as I dreamed about that Bed and Breakfast...
The move to the small village we still live in, never having made it back to NE (well, once Lyra married and then had Logan, you could'nt have blasted me out of here), was the beginning of a long up time, with little dips here and there. I stayed at my job at the college in the other state for a while, but then I quit and found a job closer to home as a day care director.
Meanwhile, DB was growing both in proficiency in his job, and in sensitivity to peoples' feelings. The macho boy I married had become a mature, caring man. He was particularly a good boss at work, and we had long talks about how to be open to the needs of the people we both supervised. I can only hope that I was growing in sensitivity to him, also! We sailed along for several years, finding the "empty nest" a chance to do the courting we had missed as a young couple. As teens, we each had too much responsibility to be carefree; now we had the opportunity and the money. And did we ever enjoy that time! We traveled, we entertained, we partied, we talked and loved and generally lived every moment to the fullest.
Thank goodness, because then our lives took the worst downturn ever. There were a series of drastic changes: DB's plant closed, leaving him, at 50, without a job; I went back to work at a job that I loved, but that had me traveling 3000 miles a month; then DB's elderly mother broke her back and she came to recuperate with us for 7 months; 5 months after that, she came to live with us permanently. We made the decision to open a retail shop so that I could be home with her and still have a life of my own. We began that new phase with such high hopes! And it was so difficult. I am certain that if we had not had those few years just being together, we would not have made it through the next tough years.
Ma hated living with us and seemed out to make us as miserable as she was. The shop failed badly, draining all our resources, both personally and financially. We withdrew from each other, both hunkering down just to protect our own sanity. It was a dark time. Thankfully, we were both very tied to our church, so we had some support. The children tried their best to help us, but it was a losing proposition all around.
When Ma died, we tried to infuse new energy into the business, but DB got a bad case of shingles in his eye, which laid him up for months. The most debilitating part of that disease was his depression. A year after she died, I finally said enough is enough. And we closed the business and moved back into our old house in the village.
That in itself was traumatic and I couldn't have done it without Lyra and her children and a dear friend who came from NE to help. The man who had lived in the house for 5 years had trashed it. I had no emotional nor physical resources left to get the house in shape for us. And DB looked at it all as a personal failure.
But, with Lyra's support, the support of the boys and our brothers and sisters at church, we began to turn it all around. And I guess that is enough for now.
In which I continue the saga of a long-term relationship that I began on July 26. Of course, it's all from my point of view. DB has his own, but I don't think we'll ever know what it is.
next~
home~
~ Collaborative ~
Archives ~
Journal ~