The Return

It has been two and a half months since I returned from my “sabbatical” to Colorado. Friends, and the little voice in my head, have encouraged me to continue writing my blog that was begun in Louisville as a way to reconnect me to the people and places I had left behind. And now I’m back, nesting in my home and puttering in my garden, and wondering why I still feel so unconnected.

The moving back process was pretty smooth. My renters took good care of my house, and my garden, while overgrown, was not hard to restore (a load of mulch applied widely and liberally before I left was the key!) Wild and crazy gardening plans have been moderated, so instead of digging up my entire backyard and building a deck, I have planted a few fruit trees and spread my blueberry plants around. It all looks good, and I’ve done most of what I can do before the cold weather sets in.

I have made some efforts to reestablish my routines, including resuming my volunteer work at the thrift store and with the master gardeners. I was welcomed back warmly. It felt good because in each case I am part of a team committed to work that produces good in the community. There are other opportunities to engage in the non-profit sector doing things I enjoy and am good at, but my internal brake light comes on when I think about new endeavors. What is holding me back?

As it turns out, taking my sabbatical was not the pause, refresh and return that I anticipated. It was not a solution to the lack of purpose that has been at the center of my awareness for some time. Ending my work and my other job as an active parent are part of the reason for that, but the doubts and emptiness are not a natural outgrowth of either of those endings.

I remember when my father retired, and my parents moved to California, my mother left a job and career that she had begun after all of us were grown. I think she really liked it, and she was good at it. When she arrived in San Diego County where she and my dad settled, she took up gardening, and visited with family, but I sensed that she felt unmoored, a bit like I feel now. Soon after, she was diagnosed with renal cancer, a disease that ended her life within a year.

That scares me, because I feel that when we give up emotionally then our body gets the message that it’s time to leave. I know this is what my sister might call “woo-woo” psychology, but having lost both a mother and a husband prematurely to cancer, I have developed my own theory of the human psyche, the human heart and the human body.

What I know deeply is that I have a very strong will to live, and have always assumed that I would live to be 101 like my Grandmother Clara. I just want the time between now and then to make sense and bring me joy and fulfillment. So that’s my new challenge –figuring out just who I am going to be in this next phase of my life.