Moving on

I don't think it matters what age you are. There is always a part of you that firmly believes your heroes, your parents and your passions never die. They are immortal. They are invincible. Soon comes the day when reality smacks you in the face and when you open your eyes there you are, left alone in a dark room with no possibility of finding your way out.

Eventually you find the door. Sometimes it finds you. How impossible it seems to hope that someday you can forgive and forget those darts that fate threw into your heart. I doubt I will ever be able to fully let go of those feelings of anger and frustration at watching my hero slowly fade away. Move on, I tell myself. This is life, I tell myself. Life is a cycle, I tell myself. "Myself" wasn't listening. Then the door found me. My light smacked me just as hard as reality did. My light, my son, my daughter.

I sat on the floor, feeling Felicia kick my internal organs (leave my bladder alone!!) while I tickled and wrestled with Kenny. He was learning to walk and he felt so proud of himself now that he had the ability to scamper away from me. This new-found freedom he had, opened so much of the world for him to explore that he could not explore before. I sat on the floor watching Kenny and I started to cry. My grandmother never got a chance to see Kenny walk. A milestone missed.

Suddenly I felt indignant. This is not right. I grew up looking forward to visiting my grandparents who only lived half hour away. I knew who they were. I grew up seeing them every holiday. I worked my ass of in school because if I got straight "A's", grandma and grandpa would take me out for ice cream. We went camping and fishing with my grandparents. They came to my softball games. Grandma taught me to play cards, to properly set a table, how to love family regardless of "bumps" in the road. She encouraged me to do crafty things. She supported my ideas, my dreams and always listened to me when I had something to say. Grandpa taught me how to cheat at cards, how to properly use my middle finger (at age 2!), how to make a martini, how to tell a story (although I use a little less flare and hand gestures) and to appreciate history. Who is going to provide these memories for my children?

The question. What the hell was I doing raising my kids in Nevada where they will get the chance to see their grandparents only once a year? We were in Nevada. My parents were in Oregon. Jason's parents were in Alaska. What are we doing?

That night, I kept Jason up way past his preferred bedtime. I needed to talk. The door had opened and in the light I saw that fate may have broken my heart, but fate also had a hand in helping me become a mom. I now needed to look in the mirror and decide what this mom was going to do to provide the best possible life for these children. I am not talking about giving them material things, I am talking about giving them tangible, life affirming memories and relationships.

Jason and I talked and talked for more that a week. He admitted that he wasn't happy working for the state. He felt like there was really nowhere to go in a job where you basically had to wait for someone to retire before you could move up, regardless of your performance on the job. We both weren't too excited about the climate of Nevada. We loved a lot of people there, but were we happy? Is this where we want to live for the next 30 years? Response, no.

Ok, we have a consensus. We agree that we want our kids to know their grandparents. They deserve to have that connection. We agree that Nevada is beautiful, but not for us. So the next question is which set of grandparents are we going to move closer to?

We spoke to Jason's parents. They asked that we come up for a visit since I had never been to Alaska before. Get a feel for the state, the job market, the people, the beauty. Sure. Ok. I can do that. Visit for a week. Then maybe we can plan a visit to Oregon too. Weigh our options, our feelings and make a decision that we feel is best for our growing family. This is a plan. This is a good plan. This is moving on as a direct result of what I learned from someone I had lost.