I'm reading this book right now. I'm sure you know the book, most people are familiar with it. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. If you haven't read the book, then perhaps you have seen the movie starring Julia Roberts. And though this may not have been in the movie, you will probably get the gist of this line that I stumbled upon in the book. It read: "This was my moment to look for the kind of healing and peace that can only come from solitude."
I'm also waiting to move to Colorado right now. My husband took a new job there back in August and we are waiting for the house to sell before the rest of the family joins him.... or, atleast those members who are moving. We believe two members are abdicating for a new life in the south separate from their parents. During this time of waiting, I made the decision to leave my job and focus on getting the house ready to sell with all that it entails. I've worked on everything from cleaning, to painting, decluttering, and reorganizing; anything to help it sell in today's market.
This is a very different experience for me. I started working during college in 1989 at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Lancaster, OH. Back then, fried was not a four letter word so they hadn't yet shortened the name to KFC. I married in 1992 and continued working. I started caring for children in my home after college graduation and then, after being shipped to Germany with my husband by the Army, I continued at a job in the PX (Army equivalent of Wal-Mart) called Ops-Squad. Though that title may bring to mind "secret-squirrell stuff" it was really a fancy way of saying "you come to work and I will tell you where you will work for the day depending on who has called in sick and what projects, sales, or shipments the store has going on". With the exception of a year in 1998 after the birth of my son (during which he had about 5 surgeries, keeping me very busy), I have never not worked. Never not had a job. Never not contributed to the family income.
So, this brings me to today..... almost six months after having left the last job that I had. The rooms have been repainted. The little projects are done. The house is relatively clean. I have steadily shown it to prospective buyers. So, what is left? What there is, is a lot of time left. I started to fill this time with Facebook. I made sure that I never missed a Status Update or a picture posted. I never failed to update my own status either, though I quickly found that when you don't work, you have less to say about your day. Then I discovered I had this homestead on a Frontier that I never knew about and, boy, was it in bad shape. It took me atleast two good solid months of tending to get my land cleared, varmints run off, buildings built, and crops harvested.
After my homestead was thriving, the challenge was gone and so I wandered. I found a box of books in the attic that I have saved since about 1989. It contained all my favorite romance and trashy novels. In case you did not know, there is a difference between a romance novel and a trashy novel. IMHO (in my humble opinion), an author starts writing trashy novels (that have good sex scenes). As she (or he) gains notoriety, the novels increase in page length, the sex scenes become less steamy, and the price goes up by about $3. That would be the difference. So, I began to re-read all these old treasures. Most of these books I acquired before ever meeting Love-of-my-life. Now that I have been Mrs. Loveofmylife for 18 years, I was able to easily dispose of some of these novels for false advertising. (That was really just a joke based on the average view of marriage in America. I, however, am still quite giddy over Mr. Loveofmylife.)
So now that the house is ready, the homestead is thriving, and the books are read, what was I to do?
Let me tell you about my mom. My mom worked my whole life. My mom worked to support the family alongside my dad. And sometimes my Mom worked while he didn't. She worked when they divorced and she was single. She worked after they remarried (each other). She even worked after they found her brain tumor and returned to work after they cut the brain tumor out of her head. She still worked two years later when the tumor came back and she had to go through it all again. She's at work today. She raised five kids while she worked. She maintained a household while she worked. She shoveled coal into the furnace in the basement at 4:30A.M. so the house would be warm when the kids woke up and then she walked in the snow for a mile to catch her ride to work. No joke, folks. We were poor and this was rural New York.
One day, about a month ago, I was being teased on Facebook about having a Facebook addiction. I took it in good stride and played with it a bit, until someone posted such a simple comment. "I have to admit, you DO spend some serious time on here." Well, that crawled all over me. I became indignant, got all huffy, my ears got hot, my forehead got wrinkled and my eyebrows moved closer to each other. And I spent 30 mins. composing my reply! You see, the person who made the statement never knew me before July of this year. She has no idea of what I have been prior to quitting my job. And I desperately had to clear up this misconception of me. This woman who lolls around the house reading romance novels and checking Facebook every 5 minutes is not me!!! This is just temporary!! I am just waiting to move!! I am much more than someone who makes a home and lets her husband support her! I have worked for the past 20 years! I have maintained a home and raised 3 kids WHILE working full-time AND going to school full-time to get a masters degree WHILE my husband was in IRAQ!!!! So don't you tell me that I'm a Facebook addict. I am not a Facebook addict!!
I AM MY MOTHER!!!!!
And the truth is revealed....
You know what happens to someone when they spend all day at home alone while the husband is gone and the kids are at school? At first, there is work to be done. They keep busy. Then the work is done and they play a little. But, ultimately, they run out of work and get bored with the play and then there is something else. Silence. Not total silence. The dog laps his water in the kitchen. The TV talks in the other room. But, there is the type of silence that allows me to hear my voice. There is time for the inner dialogue between the person I would have been had I "only ever experienced love and certainty in my life" (also taken from Eat, Pray, Love) and the person that I currently am to occur. There are no other voices. There is no "Mom!! Where is my...(insert lost item here)?", "Mom!! What's for dinner?" There is only solitude. The kind of solitude that brings peace.
You know how they say that if you really want a relationship with Jesus you have to spend time with Him? And you know how they say that in order to have a lasting marriage, you have to devote time to each other. And they say that kids spell love T-I-M-E. Well, imagine my surprise to find that in order to like yourself, in order to love yourself, you got to spend some time with yourself. You've got to be alone with yourself, ... in silence, in solitude.
So, guess what I'm doing these days. Now that the house is painted and Frontierville has lost its charm and the books have been read, you won't believe what I am doing. I am just liking myself. Sometimes, I even spend time loving myself. And I am learning!! I am learning so much. I have learned that I am valuable whether I bring home a paycheck or not. I have learned that I don't have to lie about what I am doing when my husband calls and says "What are you doing?" (though habit still makes me feel guilty for saying "nothing"). I have learned that I am married to this magnificent man who is capable of supporting the family without my help. I have given him a gift by letting him. I have learned that I deserve to be lazy sometimes and I deserve to spoil myself at times and I deserve to love myself whether I have a job or not.
So, guess what I'm doing right now. It's after 10 A.M. and I'm still wearing my jammies. I'm sitting on my bed and playing on the computer. I'm about to dive into a new book that will probably fritter away most of the day. And I'm waiting for my morning phone call from Loveofmylife who will ask me "What are you doing?" and I will say "Enjoying the solitude." And that will be enough., because I am enough.
