Every year brings its own changes and transitions, but they usually come so gradually or well-spaced, you don’t notice them, and then only in retrospect. I’ve been homeschooling my son so long now, I choke up a little when I realize I only have little more than a year to continue doing so. In the past year, I’ve heard people exclaim “he’s taller than you!” more than I care to hear it, but I know I won’t be hearing it much longer, because it’s no longer novel. My daughter is able enough to cook dinner for us when I don’t want to. And I found my first grey hairs, which I promptly hid under hair dye.
But 2014 is coming in like a storm, probably a good storm, for me and my friends. I’m posting it just to keep abreast of it all. My friend in Las Vegas is finally selling the BIG house she bought with her ex-husband and moving to a house better sized for herself and her daughter in a better neighborhood. A couple I’ve known when both were single, and then as a couple, are getting divorced. The first magazine I worked at, and where some of my colleagues had continued to work for 17+ years, is suddenly laying off its staff. The scoutmaster of my son’s boy scout troop is leaving as his son becomes an Eagle Scout and ages out. And my husband is somewhat regretfully leaving his W-2 “day job” to return to becoming a freelance consultant.
It all seems sudden because all these things are happening at the same time. But I can’t say they were totally unexpected. My friend had been talking about moving for almost a year. The couple were often separate, in a somewhat unconventional marriage, albeit one which looked happy. Print magazines are disappearing; I may work at one of the last, and most of my writing and publishing work this century has been in digital form. We knew the scoutmaster’s days were already numbered when his son presented his Eagle project to the parent committee. And I am one of the snarkiest people about the “cage” of being a regular employee, though I saw how my husband enjoyed building long-term relationships with colleagues and clients.
It just puts me in mind of what is to come. A lot of what I took for granted in the past came and went as time went on and we matured. But it just seems this month that everyone decided to take action and change their life — to move on to whatever it is that the rest of the year promises to bring.