Saturday, December 29, 2012

The Not So Blank Slate

My backyard -tiny as it is- used to be my refuge. No matter how chaotic my house or my life got, I could go to my garden and escape.  The summer sky I'd painted on my back fence was always blue - no matter what was happening in the real sky.  When my mother came to live with me, she, too, liked my garden. We used to sit out there and read the Sunday paper. One of the neighborhood cats used to come visit and curl up in my lap- much to the displeasure of my own cats. But, as her dementia took hold of her, she became careless and uncaring. She'd leave clothing or paper out there. She'd let one of my cats who was strictly a house cat out and leave her out there. I'd come home to wet and ruined clothing and newspapers and a frantic cat.

As Mom became worse and more of an invalid, the way to the garden was blocked and I couldn't spare the time to care for it.  The garden became overgrown.

 
 
I wish that it looked as picturesque as the garden above.
 
The land takes untended spaces back. Florida's long growning season takes the process a step further. It went native. Big time.
 
This past August, I paid the man who mows my lawn to clear it out. He and a friend went at it with much vigor and thoroughness. And far exceeded my expectations. He left my two trees, my hydrangea bush, and my gardenia bush. Everything else was purged- including the first thing I planted- my azalea bush. All that was left was the stump. Chairs, pots, ornaments, figurines, hoses, border fencing, and tables went into a pile.  It looked pretty bleak back there. I was in a state of shock but consoled myself that this was an opportunity to start over anew.A blank slate. But I was going to miss the azalea's magenta flowers come spring.
 
I'd given myself a pep talk and a deadline to be able to get out door to the garden by Christmas. I did it by Boxing Day night.  Today was an unseasonably warm day and I went out to the garden to see what survived the onslaught. I dug through the pile rescuing and putting chairs back into place, started putting things in a pile to be taken to the curb, and tried to figure out what I could do with what was left. I noticed a patch of green about the size of a dinner platter. I frowned but then my eyes widened. The leaves looked very familiar and were growing around the stumps of the old azalea bush.  I may not have any magenta azalea flowers in this spring, but, perhaps, by the next.
 
 


Taking Back My Life or What Hurricane Debby Did For Me.

This past summer, I was taking my time trying to get my life back to normal. Or the next best thing to normal. Before my bout of major depression. Before Dad died. Before 9/11. Before changes in my job. Before Hurricane Charley changed my mother's life and -by extension- mine. Before my cancer scare and operation. Before care taking Mom. Before breaking my pelvis. Before Mom went into hospice. Before fracturing my foot. Before her death. Before all that was happening the past 15 years. I was still working. Every day off was spent resting up for the next go-around of workdays. I was not getting much done. Tropical Storm Beryl came and went stripping more shingles off my roof. "Gotta get to re-roofing. Someday.", I told myself. Even my still small voice was speaking up less.
 
 

Then Hurricane Debby charged across from the Gulf to the Atlantic. And water started dripping from my skylight. And wet spots started forming elsewhere. So--my "Gotta-get-to" became "Get it done." First, I needed to deal with all the stuff that had been piling up. Things I had put aside and not dealt with. I started on my miniature foyer and stairway.Clearing paths. Adjusters and contractors' reps came and went. A new leak started downstairs, A tarp went on the roof in early October. The roof was repaired in late October. We had a dry spell. At the end of November, it rained and the skylight leak returned. So- I made the decision to replace all three skylights. This was something my insurance company declined to pay for- not that I was counting on them to do so.

Now the inside work needs to be done. But first comes major decluttering and disposing, So every trash day my curb looks like this times 4 or 5.  Add another trash can, boxes, and more bags.
And I'm donating stuff.
 
I wish I could say that I'm seeing lots of progress. But I'm not. My stress-drained energy levels haven't made a comeback.  I'm still coping with acid reflux based nausea that started as I was leaving the workplace. I'm slowly going gluten free to deal with it but I think there's something else in play. I'm also going to get acupuncture treatments. Until the classes broke for Christmas, I took Tai Chi and Yoga classes for exercise and to deal with stress.
 
Plus, here's an emotional toll to this process. I have to force myself to do this and I'm not always good at strong arming myself. Decluttering means coming across Mom's stuff. It's all over the place. As the dementia took hold, filing systems disintegrated. It has to be sorted through for estate purposes. Coming across stuff from the person I was 15 years ago. It's baffling. Why did I keep this? Did I actually wear stuff like this? What is this thing? Christmas presents I meant to give bob up in the ocean of boxes and piles. I put them aside in their own box so they don't disappear again. I figure I'm set for office supplies for years to come.
 
I'm good at cutting myself breaks. Too good. I let myself watch entire runs of series on Netflix and on Amazon Prime. I have the relaxation part of my new gig down. The self-motivating part- not so much. I know I'll function better without so much stuff. I just have to convince myself that getting rid of the accumulation doesn't mean that I'm getting rid of what I really and truly need.
 

Plotting The Escape

I almost always get in trouble when I don't listen to that still small voice. Just that month it had urged me to go home- not to stop at the supermarket. I ignored it and my car was crashed into. Still, I hedged my bets. I did what I call my acid test: Ask yourself: What happens if you do this? What happens if you don't? What happens if you stay? What happens if you go?
 
The thought of staying - the very thought of it- filled me with something akin to terror. Leaving with all its uncertainties and years before I really felt I should - the thought of that calmed me down. As events unfolded, I realized. My still small voice was right. It was time.
 
When you've been working as long as I had and have as many hours of leave as I did, you have to negotiate your retirement (or as I had started thinking of it: my escape). I had retirement leave and annual leave coming to me. Lots of it. I could roll my regular leave into a retirement account. But not that retirement leave. If I took the retirement leave in a lump sum, I'd see very little of it after taxes.  My ideal plan was to run out both my retirement leave and annual leave. In the current fiscal climate, that wasn't going to happen. I finally got the word. Yes- I could take my retirement leave. I would have to roll over the retirement leave into a retirement account. My last day after retirement leave would be January 10, 2013. I cleaned out my cubicle giving away a lot of what I had collected over the years (but not nearly enough) and wrote up my retirement letter. Around me, layoff and demotion meetings and restructuring conferences continued. I felt a mixture of relief tinged with survivor's guilt.
 
 
I always wondered how I would feel about leaving. I thought I'd feel bereft. I thought I might feel like I'd lost my identity. I thought there would be a library-shaped hole where my heart had been. While it took me over a month not to say "We" when referring to what was going on in the library, I realized that all the gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, spirit-draining events and outrages that had happened in my professional life over the last 15 years or so had given me this gift: "Regret nothing. That was then, This is now.  You're a person too apart from the labels of caretaker, librarian, daughter, friend, employee. It's time to take care of yourself - way past time, in fact. You're overdue. Escape to a new adventure."
 
On September 28th, I was one of 500 city staffers who escaped to new adventures.

The Decline

It's been a long long time since I posted to this or any other blog. In the intervening year and several months:
  •  I continued to have problems with my car. Bad trouble. Stranded at night troubles. Dead in the water on Riverside Avenue at rush hour troubles.
  • My mother was in hospice.
  • One of my cats was diagnosed with diabetes.
  • I was transferred to a direct public service department at work.
  • I got a new car.
  •  My days were full of work, going  to see my mother and advocate for her, going home and care taking the cats, and zonking out on the couch. Repeat every single day.
  • My mother got worse.
  • I went down for the count with bronchitis.
  • My cat came down with pancreatitis and went into the animal hospital.
  • My mother died and dealing with what was left of the estate began.
  •  It looked like my cat was going to die too. Instead, she to be fed via feeding tubes.
  • The annual Summer of Uncertainties at work began anew. Layoffs were threatened. Anxiety rose, and rose, and rose throughout the summer. I felt the darkness of depression swirling nearer and nearer.
  • Hurricanes and storms passed by and passed through. My roof started leaking both upstairs and downstairs. I needed a new roof.
  • The Director announced the layoffs, demotions, staffing and hour cuts, and transferring of staff were now a certainty. I hadn't been in my new department a year. The Director said it would be even worse in the next fiscal year. Base pay would be cut again in the coming fiscal year. Proposed new schedules came out.
  • My new car was hit by a woman who made a premature lane change and who is probably still telling people it's everyone else's fault, not hers. I was back in rental cars again for a while.
A still small voice inside me said: " Enough. You have worked in your job over 33 years, You can retire. If you stay on, you will only be more miserable, angrier, and sicker. The new schedule means you won't get to do all those things you wanted to do for the past 8 years." I hesitated. "DO IT!" screamed the not-so-still, not-so-small voice.