“Look at this as an adventure,”  I donned my Santa Hat and after searching every where for my packing tape (including the garage) in the pouring rain,  my package was ready to be mailed.  Yesterday I had seen a post office right around the corner from me, so I loaded the box into my car, (in the pouring rain) and drove over there.  CLOSED SATURDAYS the sign read.  RATS I said.  Went back to my car (in the pouring rain) and tried to find a post office that was open today.  Thank God for navigation,  but got lost.  So I pulled into the Home Depot parking lot and tried again.  I navigated from there to the post office.  By now I am used to making two trips to arrive at one destination.    It’s a good thing I have no time constraints.

So I arrived at the post office only to be told that the line was not where I was standing (the sign said it was), but I let the woman go ahead of me.  I knew people would be gunning for me because of the hat, but I was going to be cheerful, dammit.  The postal employees were friendly, referring to me as Mrs. Santa Claus.  Mission accomplished, package in the mail.

“I deserve a Skinny Peppermint Mocha Latte.”  So I drive to Starbucks, which I can see from the post office.  So in the pouring rain I drive over and try to get in the drive-thru.  Evidently,  I was blocking a drive and this woman in a Lincoln Continental kept honking at me to move, so I pulled up so she could get around me.  I tried to stare her down but she wouldn’t make eye contact.  Again it must be the hat and Michigan license plate.  The thickness of my skin needs to increase, but at 63 I am thinking that is a lost cause.  Personally I am sick of people being butts.  So I just smile at them and then say what I really think when they are not around.

I know I put myself in this situation,  but I do so enjoy being around the kids.  They love me and I love them, and that’s the way it will always be no matter where I live.  I wish I would have realized that before I moved myself down here.  But it’s only for a year,  I will look at it as an adventure.

I don’t know where I belong.  There,  I’ve said it.  It’s here in black and white and yellow and green polka dots.

Right now I am staying in Atlanta, to be with my Grand kids who moved down here this summer.  After selling our home on Lake Allegan,  being in Kalamazoo didn’t feel like the place to be right now.  The weather is a damn site better (one of my Dad’s sayings).   Since being down here, I have seen the kids and spent more time with them than the last couple of years when I was living only 30 miles from them.  That’s the upside.

My life and everything I identify with has been turned upside down.  I am lost.  My precious Sam is gone and he is not coming back.  What the hell do I do now?  I am feeling my way through  the darkness.   It is going to take time and the things I do will puzzle some.  Truthfully,  I have not given myself the time I need.  

Right now I can’t say this is a permanent move.  It probably won’t be, but I will enjoy the time here with the kids who will help me heal. 

The reality is that I now have a new normal which I have yet to recognize,  let alone adjust to.