And.....we're off!

Oh, goodness. I am back at work. Back teaching at the university. The place I couldn't imagine returning as anything other than a broken person. And a resentful one--how dare a job get in the way of my grieving, my healing?  There's some truth to that, in all honesty, but not in the magnitude I imagined.

I have been on academic sabbatical, aka my odyssey, since mid- May of 2009. Before that, I taught Jan-May 2009.  The previous semester, that of fall, 2008, I lived with my father in Connecticut, to spend time with him and taught my classes online. So I've been gone a lot over the past two years. I'd been gone, mentally, ALL of that time, fearing my father's month to month lifespan changes, fearing for his ability to withstand aggressive treatments, worrying about his grief over my mother's death just months prior, freaking out over the thought of losing both my parents so quickly, hating my job, its location, its ass-numbing repetition, its challenging and toxic personalities, drinking waaaaaaaaaay to much to numb the pain.

This past fall, 2009, I was on my first semester of sabbatical, and spent most of the time on the east coast, being with my father, who was declining rapidly, and singing recitals here and there.  We drove to my sister's place, just over an hour away, every weekend, for most of the time, but by the end of October, we weren't going. He wouldn't ask her to come and visit him. I wanted him, too, desperately, because his family was his lifeline--my sister and I --and especially his grandchildren, who gave him so much joy. Michelle didn't really want to come to the house, for a variety of legitimate reasons, although a few of which I prayed she'd overcome, for my father's sake.  Acquaintances who knew my father naturally knew about his family. They all said, after he'd passed away,  "This has hit your sister very hard. He and your sister were very close." Those comments prickled me, a little, because I'd chosen, twice, each for a semester, to leave my own home and come stay at his, so he and I could be together. These same people had wondered what I was doing in CT, and my father asked me to reveal nothing of his illness, so my impotent answer was always, "Oh, just visiting." Even now, months later, when I was last in CT, an acquaintance asked how Michelle was doing, you know, because it hit her so hard. My Executrix Dog and Pony show must have a real spit shine on it; most of these people don't ask me how I'm doing. Odd.  It's a little like nails down a chalkboard that I pretend not to hear. I guess it's true that you never know how strong you are until you have no choice. I hope my sister learns this lesson. I believe she is strong, I don't know if *she* knows it, because so many people rush to take care of and worry about her. I want her to feel empowered, to BE empowered. She is also my father's daughter, so there must be a cord of strength running inside her. I have also been hoping (and vocal) that our relationship will grow. I send her cards, little gifts when I think of her, and she asks me what she's supposed to do. DO? Isn't that a strange question coming from one sibling to another? I am puzzled. *But I digress*

I am back at the university, on my own terms, which at least for now, I can maintain, by maximizing my contact with students, minimizing my contact with colleagues. Shucks, I have class during faculty meetings. It adds work to my overloaded schedule, to read every poorly researched, (ir-)rational and badly written proposal, keep track of often equally nonsensical email POVs, and the submit my vote BEFORE the meeting. But the good news is that, this, too, is on my terms! How wonderful a welcome.  I do sound cynical, but for very good reasons, none of which need to be dredged up like thousand year old petrified trees from the great depths of a lake. Just know they're slimy, full of lichen and gunk.

During this first week, the Big Box arrived at my house; some of the things we rescued from my father's attic (including The Motherload). M and K had shipped it for us. It contains the dress in which I made my Kennedy Center debut, part of one of my mother's evening gowns from when she and my dad were dating. It's a big box, and it is NOT going into my bedroom. It will 'stay as it lays' in the sunroom, where the western exposure will seep through the cardboard, purify the contents with its inherent goodness, and wash away the sadness. If this box ever made its way to my bedroom, the room itself would be forever lost.  While there are no surprises in the Big Box, since K and I packed it ourselves, I am still leery to open it. I have dealt with all of my father's things, big and small, over the last eight months, and I am tired.  I do not want these two worlds to overlap. But they are. Estate work continues over email and fax, new subcontractors with more spiffing up work to do on the house, more checks to write.

These worlds, like rivers, are colliding in my mind, pushing my limits to process clearly. One collapses into the other, and neither remains unpolluted. Muddy water disconcerts me. In cases like these, where two vitally important but very separate tasks need to coexist, I lose the ability to multi-task. My old black and white thinking returns. Old emotional patterns resurface.  Ah, the Odyssey has perhaps been a cyclical journey after all? I had thought not. I feel so different.

I have no time now for self-exploration, only self-preservation. This angers me and frankly, scares me.  I have not gone through the year of a lifetime only to end up BACK in stymied self-preservation mode, in which I can only tread water, and not move forward.

I will emerge from this cocoon. I don't know where I will be when this happens, whether in this job or another. In this state or another. There will be new companions on the journey, that I know.  Others with wings, like mine.