Epilogue to A New Day

1995 was a really odd year for me... I'd only been married a few months when I learned that my office was being shut down ~ the job that had been sustaining me and my child was the proverbial rug being pulled out from beneath my feet. And not only that... in a setting like that your office mates become like family, it can't be helped. You can determine when you are coming into the 'new job' that you will mind your own business and get your work done and go home, but then someone approaches you tentatively to bring something to a potluck or asks for a contribution to a baby shower fund and it's over... you've been inducted. But after all that time.. all that involvement and commitment it comes down to leaving your key at the door and taking your severence package...

I keep getting reminders of 1995 though. Someone sent me a note about Shannon Hoon's death, earlier we were talking about a trip to Toronto we'd taken, Lea asked me about how she came to be (it was on a camping trip), Nicholas reminded me of the date which would have been my mother's birthday... She died that year which is kind of weird that happened somewhere between a vacation, losing my job and getting pregnant. Christmas even came... I don't know how all these thing work out but we seem to be able to fit them in.

It's really the last year I remember being clear about time and dates. After that year it's all so hazy ~ mourning came, babies born, ups and downs and ins and outs, moving here or there, Losing jobs, gaining people, hating, death, new life, old cars, wrecks, spills, love lost and returned... And, suddenly now it is now.

I'd like to stop and remember this day: It is overcast and chilly, I have on a pair of pajama bottoms with an Ohio State zip-up, my feet are cold so I have them indian style up under my legs, sitting at the front window I see my cat has escaped, there are bricks in my yard laid out like a spiral, the kids are coloring underwater sea creatures, Royce has called me 4 times to talk to me about firewood, the phone rings and I do not answer it, I ate a cookie and didn't feel guilty, I started my period yesterday and it is like a flower, the trees are golden, my bathroom mirror fell and broke ~ I wondered about my dead mother causing a ruckus on her birthday, I thought about the song that always makes me think of her...

I'm not crazy,
I'm just a little unwell
I know, right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know, right now you don't care
But soon enough you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be

I don't remember the names of the people who were my office family, and I don't really remember her being here anymore.