Countdown: R Minus Ten

The next number of posts, if I am able to keep my head above water, will countdown the days to my retirement. I hadn't really thought seriously about retiring this year. It had been the year I was NOT supposed to retire. I was supposed to go one, possibly two, more years to get maximum increases in my state teachers retirement income. The divorce caused me to alter my plans. I have been going into the classroom the last few weekends and have found it surprisingly easy to clean out and throw many things away. What makes this particularly easy is knowing that a person I know, trust and respect is moving into the classroom. I couldn't have wished it on a better person. She has told me to leave things and she'll go through them. I feel I can't do that. I have done most of my year-end testing, although today I discovered one child had eluded me on the math assessment. I will take care of that on Monday. There are final reading screenings to do. It'll all happen. And I have done most of my progress reports and cum files for the office. Thursday evening there was a reception for retirees by the Board of Education and then the Board members presented us each with an engraved paperweight at the beginning of the official Board meeting. I had Laura and the baby come as my guests. Friday morning I was honored at the annual staff appreciation breakfast given by the PTA. They wanted a speech. It's a little tough to sum up thirty seven years in the moment with no warning, but I think I did okay. It was a sweet tribute and I appreciated the kindness and the special recognition. After school a former student had me over for tea and scones (his mother's British), and gave me a necklace (Mum's a jeweler). The approaching R is getting more and more palatable as the time draws nearer.

A Dream

The other night I had a dream. I know it happened early in the morning, probably around six. I had awakened for a second a bit earlier and then fell back into a sleep with this dream. I was running. I was running along Venice Boulevard. I was outrunning the buses. I was outrunning other runners, younger runners, more well-trained runners. It felt effortless, and I kept going faster and faster. I felt none of the jolting that I used to feel when my feet hit the ground. I wasn't sweating. I was running in some kind of long-distance run and I was winning easily. In this dream I was truly fleet-footed. Then I was suddenly at another location and I was picking up a phone. I was going to call Bill. People were saying---and a voice inside my head was saying---"Don't call him. Don't go back there. Don't do that to yourself again. You've come so far." Then I was running again. Just like in the earlier part of the dream. Running, running, running. When I woke up, my jaw ached. I had been grinding my teeth.

Growing Daily

Every day I have to have my 'grandma time' with KJ. I sit in the rocker, the chair the family built for Bill's great-grandfather when he was very old, and I rock that baby. I look down in his little angelic face and my heart is filled with a warmth and contentment I cannot describe. A day without 'grandma time' is a day gone wrong. It is incomplete. And unacceptable. That warmth, that slow building of endorphins in my system, is just what I felt when I held Laura so many years ago. It makes everything feel right. I had forgotten that kind of love. And there are moments, moments when I'm holding him, that I think 'this is how I felt when I held Laura but back then I couldn't let all of these feelings rush over me like I can now. I was so tired. I was always thinking about what I had to do next. I was working. There was too much getting in the way of me just letting go and loving her. My body hurt. My breasts hurt. My back hurt. And I had postpartum anemia.' This grandma stuff, I get it now. It's a mother's love without obstructions. I can really get into this!

I suppose I should reread this blog before I add posts, especially considering how long it's been since I last wrote something here. Has much changed? I guess so. I have let it out at work that I am going to retire this year. People are shocked. It's universally felt that I was married to a jerk and a bum. 100% of males (with the exception of my first ex-husband) feel that no 'real man' would take from a woman the way Bill is taking from me. I have taken a vacation to Northern California and let the young parents and Baby KJ have a week at home. KJ is growing unbelievably fast. Laura is coping well with motherhood and even went back to work parttime this week at the office where Kyle is employed. I have become comfortable with the notion of retirement and am aware that I will have major adjustments to make as I convert from one lifestyle to another. Part of it will be the lack of busyness, that at times looks like frenzy; another will be reconciling how much of my identity was tied to this school where I have worked since I graduated from college, my first job interview, the mainstay of my family's security for thirty-seven years. It will be sweet. It will be sad. It will be fun. It will be a relief. But what level of 'missing' will be involved? And what level of emptiness? It remains to be seen.

An Infamous Day

The day arrived. We met in the attorney's room at noon to finalize the deal we'd made at the mediator's. No, I wasn't going to take another full day off of work to do this. I was taking a half day. Our courtroom appointment was for 1:30. The attorneys could meet me at noon. Or 11:30. Or 12:30. Enough of this taking off work to go to court and whatnot. We had got Bill to drop the diminished capacity plea and accept the agreement he had signed. I was fed up and not in any mood to give any more to the cause. My attorney had us initial the bottom of each of the twenty-five pages and wherever something had been crossed out or changed. There was no quibbling or arguing. As we signed our full names on the final page, Bill leaned back in his chair and said, "I don't think I'm going to be able to pick up the dog within fourteen days of getting the $81,000." Typical Bill. His signature means nothing. His word means nothing. He can back out of his promises at whim. Even before the ink dries. The quintessential Bill. At that point my attorney---and I won't quote him here----almost leaped across the table at Bill basically telling him that if he didn't pick up the dog within the allotted time, he would be dragged back into court and sued for whatever, including legal costs. Bill then said, "Well, I wouldn't want to make you unhappy, then. I'll pick up the dog within fourteen days." Quintessential Bill. The judge congratulated us on having settled our divorce outside of court. He signed the agreement. It took so little time that I barely remember it. My attorney made Bill swear under oath that he was on no medications that would preclude him understanding in full what he had signed. I had to claim the same. It was March 29. This has always been a significant date for me. My father's mother died on March 29 when he was ten years old. Fifty years to the day after that, my mother died. Somewhere in between, Bill was born. And now it was going to be the day my divorce became final. I have begun to dread the date. I neglected to wish him a happy birthday.

A Little Leg Breaking Pays Off

We were still left with the unfinished business of the estranged husband who wanted to back out of the legally binding agreement. You could have colored me 'very unhappy'. In fact, you could have intensified the colors to 'finally pissed off'. Which I realized was a good thing. What had emerged as assertiveness with the whole process back in December had now morphed into completely-fed-up. What was that famous line from Network when everyone threw open their windows and screamed into the New York night sky? That's how I felt. I wasn't going to take it any more. Not. Any. More. So I didn't. I told my attorney I would NOT be doing any further negotiating with Bill. I said I wasn't afraid to go to trial. I was actually kind of looking forward to it. I said I would ask for sanctions against Bill, for the court to either make a decision for Bill or have a conservator assigned to him,and I also was going to enter into evidence the letter Bill wrote saying that if I didn't 'cooperate' with him in doing the divorce his way he'd be 'quite capable of running up legal fees'. I would then ask the court order 3/4 of my legal fees be taken out of his share of the settlement. My attorney typed this all up in a letter he sent out that Friday afternoon. On Monday morning I got the call saying Bill was going to sign the mediated settlement. Dang! As much as I don't like drama, I was sort of looking forward to going to trial.

Unexpected Joy

Okay, I've heard it said for many years that being a grandparent is the best. I didn't quite understand what all the fuss was about. I'm not saying I wasn't looking forward to being a grandparent. In fact, I hadn't given it much thought at all. I thought grandparenting was one of those things I would experience in the far and nebulous future. I had had some good grandparents, people whose company I enjoyed, people who I knew loved me, people who always did special things with me. Going to my grandparents' home was a special treat, and getting to go stay there without my parents was a very special treat. My grandmother always took me to cool places like Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, and a special park in her town called Dennis the Menace Park. She painted my nails and dabbed perfume behind my ears. She let me dress up in her fox stole and her slingback heels. I had terrific memories of grandparents and knew I would provide those types of memories for my grandchildren as well. When the time came. That time, I was always sure, was in the distance, not something that was going to happen soon. Then KJ was born. I quickly learned four things: 1) I would love him as much as I had loved his mother. Why didn't anyone tell me that? It didn't occur to me that I could ever love in that way again. I thought it was reserved only for my own child. 2) This love was, in some ways, more intense than the love I had had for Laura. 3) It was because: my body wasn't destroyed from pushing him out, my nipples weren't sore and on fire, I wasn't dodging streams of urine in the middle of the night while trying to change him, and I wasn't sleep-deprived. 4) The intactness of my body and mind allowed me to express feelings of awe, tenderness, and closeness in a way that wasn't impacted by the above circumstances. I have been reminded of times when my postpartum anemia and fatigue interfered with me just being able to enjoy my baby. And that's when I saw it! I can love my grandchild because the rest of me isn't being hampered. I can take that child in my arms, rock him, coo at him, tell him how wonderful he is and how much I love him, and my body is whole, my brain is operating on a decent night's sleep, and my hemoglobin count is well into the teens. Hallelujah! I get this 'Grandparenting is Wonderful' thing because I know WHY!!! And then, of course, there is that comment I have heard so often: when you're finished with the baby, you can just hand him back to his parents. A-ha! For the first two weeks I was even able to get away with saying, "I think there's something in his diapers. Maybe he needs to be changed." Ahhhhhhhhh, buh-bye, little cutie. Mommy's going to change you now.....