My Secret Life

PREFACE:  For those who know me well, it is no secret that I tend to write non-fiction.  I tend to write about what has happened to me or to people I know.  I find that if I write what I know is true then I don’t have to do too much laborious research, plus the “voice” just comes off more genuine.   Back when I was attending college writing classes, often I was assigned to write fiction.  It was always a challenge (as I don’t really see myself as an imaginative person) but I did find it amusing and sometimes interesting writing resulted.

The story below, My Secret Life, was the result of an assignment to “write about something secret or hidden.”  I started off thinking about the movie “True Lies” with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis and how he was a computer salesman by day and a government agent by night, hiding the truth from his wife all the while.   The thought of that double-life scenario tickled my imagination a bit.  So I used the double-life premise as I started my story, not knowing quite where it would end.

At the time I was staying with my mom and dad.  As often happens, I passed the beginnings of my story by my mom.  As always happens, she contributed to the story (the epiphany, if you will) in such a way that for a moment, even I thought that I might be able to write fiction… but only for a moment.

MY SECRET LIFE

Tonight I come home from work and my wife questions me again.  “I called the office and they said you were out.  Where were you?”  She means to sound concerned; I know that after 20-odd years of marriage, but to my ears it rings of distrust.

“Edwards, that bastard, insisted I go with him to see a dissatisfied client.  Like there is anything I can do at this point.  Damage control he calls it but really, after he botched things up there is nothing I can do to save his butt.”  I take off my jacket and carefully hang it in the closet hall.  I’m always very mindful to take care of my personal belongings.  I don’t need my wife discovering anything accidentally.  Before I close the closet door, I go through my jacket pockets, just to be sure.  My fingers touch on something square and flat.  I know instantly what it is.  A match book… with a motel name printed on it.  I grasp it between my thumb and palm and slide it inconspicuously into my front pants pocket.  I’d get rid of it later.

“Really, Laura, we were lucky that Stemco didn’t throw us out…,” and I go on to continue talking the boring office talk that Laura was used to and by second minute would listen with half an ear and by the fifth minute of my yammering if she wasn’t sound asleep, it would be a miracle.  I had the routine down to a science.  Spread sheets, computer crashes, client complaints, an inadequate staff and the list went on.  Anything I could think of that I knew would bore the holy bejesus out of her.  Get her mind off of me and what I do with my time.

I go into the living room and clicked the tube on.  Strategically, I sit by the phone.  If it rings I want to be the one to answer.  Laura is always trying to answer before I can and at this point, it was almost a contest of would could answer quicker.

The routine is to watch the news after a heavy day at the office.  The same stuff night after night; trucks turning over on highways, kidnappings, murders, police chases, school boards up in arms, poisonings of some sort, dog bites, floods, water shortages, plagues and famines – then a humanitarian story thrown in at the last minute to save us all from taking our lives out of despair.  Oh good, a fireman saved some babies from a burning orphanage.  There are some worthy people in the world.  I’ll put of the suicide thing a bit longer.  It’s my cynical way of thinking and speaking.

I notice sometime into the news program that dinner is sitting on the coffee table in front of me.  Funny, I didn’t see my wife put it there.  I’m not very observant for someone who has to watch their every step.  Chicken, baked without the skin, salad with the dressing on the side, boiled rice and sparking water.  Puzzlement.  “Laura, I think you got our dinners mixed up, Hun.”  I hear her shuffling around in the kitchen.  The shutters between the kitchen and living room fly open and she sticks her head through it.  She looks agitated.

“Len, Hun, that is your dinner.  Eat it. It’s good for you.  The doctor said you needed to watch your cholesterol.”  It did look pretty tasty, aside from the salad, but I wasn’t ready to give up the point.

“Are you dieting again?  Damn it Laura, every time you diet, I lose weight.  I don’t need to lose any more weight.  I’m already a bag of bones.”

“If you don’t eat it, you won’t get dessert.”  She scowls at me in that funny way of hers that makes her two eyebrows come together to make one hairy line and her mouth screw up tight like she’s sucking a lemon.  She slams the shutters closed.  I shrug and dig in.  It is good.  The rice is surprisingly garlicky.  She knows what I like.

The phone rings.  Damn it.  It always rings right in the middle of dinner.  I snatch the phone up before she can, yelling almost frantically, “I got it!  I got it!”  “Yah,” I say into the phone.  When I identify the caller, I am particularly glad my wife didn’t answer.  Mostly because I know how a hang-up can ruin a perfectly good evening for her.  If it ruins it for her, then it ruins it for me.

I listen to the caller for a minute, yupping and yeahing in my blasé way but inside I was jazzed.  I was going to have fun tonight.  The caller had promised as much… but if I wanted to have fun, I had to hurry to the prearranged destination.  It was a shabby motel on Route 44 by the name of Red Oaks where last spring some clever high school kids had rearranged the sign letters to read dORks Motel.
I get up from my quickly chilling dinner and tell a bold-faced lie to my wife – real sweet and apologetic-like.  “Gee Hunny.  That was Edwards.  Wouldn’t you know it… Stemco has had a change of heart and would like to hash things out.”  She was looking at my suspiciously.  She wasn’t as dumb as she should be.  “The only thing is, they don’t want to wait until tomorrow.  They want to meet over dinner tonight.”  At least I was quick on my feet.  She brightens up at the thought of dinner out.

“Great, Len.  Just let me wrap up the food.  We can have it tomorrow… maybe in a casserole or something.  I’ll put on my new green dress and, if you can spare another couple of minutes, I’ll just touch up this haystack,” she said tousling her short blond hair.  I swallow hard and stop her tracks from the kitchen to the bedroom.  I lay a gentle hand on her shoulder, which noticeably stiffens when I explain the situation.

“Sorry Hun.  This really is a sensitive issue and there is a lot of top secret stuff we are going to be discussing.  Oh Laura-babe, don’t look at me like that.  No one’s wives are going.  Edwards said so.  You’d be bored silly.  Besides, I shouldn’t be all that late.”  I figured I could make excuses if she caught me coming in a 3:00 a.m. but hopefully, she would be out cold.  She jerked away from me, mumbling that she had better things to do that evening anyway, and kept her tracks to the bedroom, slamming the door.  For a moment I wondered what she meant by her remark but I figured she was probably just being sour.  I felt kind of sorry for her, but it couldn’t be helped.  I was in a hurry.

My discomfort for deceiving Laura lingered only a moment.  I thought distastefully about the fact that what sleep I might actually get tonight would likely be on the living room sofa.  However, my mind was full of the promised excitement that the next several hours held and my guilt faded.  It’s a wonder I didn’t crash driving to the motel, I was so charged up.  I could almost taste the testosterone flowing.

I pull into the dirt lot that served as the motel’s parking lot and momentarily glanced at the establishment’s sign. They had fixed the “dORks Motel” back to “Red Oaks Motel.”  I saw a light shining from Room 2; the usual room.  I saw a face peering out with expectation written all over it.  I took a quick look at myself in the rear view mirror; not much to the surface, but beneath I knew what I was capable of.  I went around to the trunk and took out the black gym bag that I kept there in anticipation of these nights.  The bag was heavy and bulged with the tools of my deception to my wife.

While I stuff my car keys into my pocket, I thought that I felt like Superman. I was mild-mannered on the outside, but with a secret life; able to leap tall buildings in a single bound – well not really, but it sometimes felt like it… particularly on these special nights.

As I approached Room 2, the door opened with expectation.  The evening had begun.  “Len, what took you so long?”  I explained that I had to make excuses to the wife and there had been a minor traffic accident and rubberneckers had slowed me down.  I stepped into the room and sat of the edge of the bed.  Same ugly patched up job.  The curtains didn’t even match.  A drink was handed to me – scotch and soda.

“You know what I like.”  I smiled appreciatively.

“That’s why I called you here.  I thought I might be able to put some excitement into your otherwise mundane existence.”  The tattered old shade was pulled and the light from the bedside table reflected crazily about the room.

“Yeah.  Thanks.  I couldn’t go through with it this afternoon.  I just knew I’d get caught.  The wife’s all over me.  She doesn’t miss a trick.”  I took a large gulf of my drink.  It went down smooth.  As excited I as I was about the whole prospect of the night, I was nervous as well.  It had been a long time.  I hoped I would be satisfied.

“Just remember…it’s like riding a bike.  You never forget it.”  Edwards laughed and slid something long and hard into my hand.  “Do you think you can handle it?”  He asked me a gleam in his eye.

“It’s been a long time Eddy… a real long time.  I might just choke.”  I didn’t have to look down.  I could feel the taught skin covering a package which promised delight.  It was naughty.  I couldn’t say no to it.  I was addicted.  My mind was going wild with the expectation of the pleasure of my vice.  I just hoped that my wife wouldn’t find me out.  Her skin would crawl if she knew what I was up to.  She’d never let me forget my filthy behavior and lack of respect for myself, my body and her.  But, she would never find me out because I intended on taking a shower to wash away my sins – plus gargle and brush my teeth.  Thank goodness I had remembered my trusty gym bag.

I laid back and raised the Havana to my expectant lips.  Boy, did it taste great!  I took a long drag and blew a lazy blue smoke ring while contemplating how my wife would never understand. She had promised the doctor I would quit smoking, and as far as she knew, I had.

The One That Got Away

If you have ever dated, and especially if you have dated as prolifically as I have, you may have experienced “the one that got away.”  For all of those who do not know, “the one that got away” is that special someone you dated who, for some reason, never seemed to work out…no matter how hard you tried.  There was always some obstacle; be it distance, age, work schedules, or that universal reason of “not being the right time.”  Sigh.

Over dinner last night, I polled my husband and my in-laws (Tom and Judy) about whether they had “one that got away.”  Okay, I admit it, my polling system is intrinsically flawed but I thought that the wine and beer had lubricated their jaws enough that they would fess up.  No such luck. Everyone claimed that they were with the one they were meant to be with.  A huge sigh of relief from me, being that one of them was my husband.  Is that true? Do they really believe they are with the one that was meant to be?

They all said, and I’m combining their statements to paraphrase, that when things are going well, of course there isn’t the “one that got away.”  When things are less than perfect, there is a possibility of an ex or two coming to mind... however, when it came down to brass tacks, they were all happy and there was no "one that got away."

I, of course, am ridiculously honest, especially when I drink.  I tortured poor Emmett by blurting out that I had “one that got away,” and wondered if he could guess who it was.  He guessed wrong twice!  Jeez!  Shows how much he pays attention.  It was not “my first love” (that deserves a blog posting all of its own).  It was not the gorgeous personal trainer (he ruined any possibility of being "the one that got away" when he gave me exercise equipment for Valentine’s Day).  It was a colleague of mine who worked in Chicago.  Why was he “the one that got away?” 

Why?  That is a good question.  He was not very attentive.  He was far away.  He was older than me by nine years.  He was divorced with three teenagers.  He was absolutely unavailable and that, was the reason it didn’t work.  Of course, he was gorgeous (in a Marlborough man kind of way); made a good living; was brilliant, funny and charming.  And that was the reason I tried to make it work.   I think, if I were to guess (which I am) why he garnered the status of "the one that got away," it comes down to a lethal cocktail of him not being available (emotionally or physically) and me not having closure with the situation (we never did talk about our break up… he just moved to California).  Those elements combined made him “the one that got away.”

You can’t make sense of “the one that got away.”  “The one that got away,” holds a special crazy spot in your heart.  I am completely in love with my husband – 100% in love, and yet, when I heard from Mr. Chicago last year, via an email, my heart skipped a beat… for about the next three hours.  He wasn’t trying to seduce me (he is married now as well); he was just touching base to see how I was doing.  Still, I had to wonder, was I the “one that got away” for him too?  And, if so, how is it that two people who have that “one that got away" feeling were not able to work it out?  It’s like Mr. Owl in the Tootsie Pop commercial: ‘“one, two, three… (crunch)”… the world may never know.’

I am happy knowing that things worked out the way they were meant to be.  I am confident that all of those barriers that were in place during the relationship with Mr. Chicago, would be even larger now had we progressed.   I am happy with Emmett.  Bizarrely enough, we overcame of those same barriers I had faced with Mr. Chicago.  Emmett lived in Florida, was divorced and had two daughters and was younger than me by six years; and yet we are together.  Do you know why?  Because, we both wanted to be with each other and distance, age and  ex relationship baggage didn’t matter enough to keep us apart. The reason that “the one that got away" exists, is that someone didn’t want the relationship badly enough.

Who Are You For?

In Montgomery people will often decide whether or not you are socially acceptable to hang out with based on the answer to one question.   The first question many locals will ask is not “what is your family name,” nor is it “what do you do”; it is “who are you for?”   Alabama is ALL about college football, specifically the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!) or Auburn University (War Eagle!) teams.  People will literally, and I do mean literally, decide if they want to be your friend based on which team you are “for.”  I’ve even heard of instances where someone will turn around and walk away without another word if the wrong team name is uttered during introductions.  I guess even southern hospitality has its limits.

It is commonplace to see cars with all sorts of bumper stickers, tags and flags (often all on one car) declaring everlasting love for one of the local college teams.   People will actually choose the color of their car based on their college team colors (crimson for UA and orange for AU).  There seem to be an unusually high ratio of crimson and orange cars in Alabama.  Many houses sport flags and door mats declaring their team of choice.   I haven’t seen a crimson or orange house yet but am braced for it.

 On occasion, you will hear the term a “house divided” which refers to a household where the wife is “for” one team while the husband is “for” another.  There is a flag for that too!  People joke about the fact, that it is more contentious to be in a relationship of “a house divided” than it is to be of different political parties.  That’s how serious the locals take their college football. 

Boston sports fans are known for being some of the most supportive (if not fanatic), however, after observing the local sports fervor in Montgomery, I contend that Boston sports fans come in a close second.

Having lived in Massachusetts for most of my life (with a brief stint in NYC), I know all about sporting rivalries… Red Sox vs. Yankees, Patriots vs. Jets, Bruins vs. Rangers, etc.   However, all of those teams are separated by geography.  In the case of UA and AU, there is no such differentiation.  Both teams are in the state of Alabama.  

I still have not completely figured out how people decide who they are for but I suspect it comes down to who your family traditionally routed for and/or whether someone attended one of the schools.  It could be that people decide who they are “for” based on something completely random.  I submit my husband Emmett as a prime example.

Emmett, back when he was single and 18, decided he was for Alabama after he met a pretty girl at a party and she was a huge Alabama fan.  At the time, he had no idea about the rivalry of UA and AU.  He just wanted to date the girl; lucky for him he said “Alabama.”  Once he had declared who he was for, that was it; he never looked back.  He is now the biggest Alabama fan there is.  He would rather go to regular season Alabama game than the Super Bowl.  I think he actually shed a tear when they lost to LSU earlier this year and I’m pretty sure he shed tears of happiness when they won the BCS Championship last week. It’s like I said, completely random.

When asked, who am I for?  I respond “Alabama of course!  Roll Tide!”  It’s become a knee jerk reaction.  I am an Alabama fan by marriage/default; it is for the preservation of my marriage.  I am not 100% sure that Emmett could accept it if I decided to switch teams and declare my love for Auburn.  He’s not in the market for a "house divided” flag. 

As an aside: Kudos to both teams!  Alabama was the 2009 BCS Champions; Auburn was the 2010 BCS Champions and Alabama is the 2011 BCS Champions.  Three years running the BCS Champions have been state of Alabama teams.  That’s a lot to be proud of.

So, if you happen to visit us, and someone asks you who are you “for,” it may be just polite conversation, or it may be someone is determining whether or not you are worthy to befriend.

Rapunzel and the Hot Air Balloon

Rapunzel and the Hot Air Balloon by Olivia Rose on Christmas 2002

This past week, I wrote about the power of choice and I noted that I’m not sure I ever realized until this year how much choice really played a part of change – that’s not entirely true.  There have been moments of self-empowerment throughout my life.  There have been times when my inner fire has been sparked by something or someone who inspired me to make the choice to change.  Sometimes the inspiration came from my bathroom scale; usually that’s when I would join Weight Watchers and drop twenty pounds or so.  Sometimes it was Oprah reminding me (and all of America) that just because you were born into a situation doesn’t mean you can’t change it. “You go girl!”  The most unlikely, and powerful inspiration came on Christmas Day 2002.  It was a personal Christmas miracle, if you will.

  

To set the scene: My family was gathered around my parents’ Christmas tree in the early morning of December 25, 2002.  My parents, my sisters Tanya and Kalliope , her three year old daughter Olivia and I were happily listening to Christmas music piping over the radio airwaves, eating delicious cinnamon rolls, lounging in our pajamas and unwrapping gifts.  We had just talked to Ellie who was had moved to Japan and couldn’t be with us for Christmas that year.  My parents’ little Norwich terrier Flirt (or Flirty boy as we liked to call him) was just nosing around on the floor for cinnamon flavored crumbs; he sported a big green bow on his head that someone had removed from their gift and attached to him.

In our family, we like to take turns, usually youngest to oldest, selecting a gift from below the Christmas tree and handing it to the person for whom the gift is intended.  In this way, everyone has a chance to admire all of the gifts and not just rip through them unceremoniously.  It takes a bit longer than everyone just rushing in and grabbing their own gifts but, personally, I don’t like to rush Christmas.  It only comes once a year, after all.

It was Olivia’s turn to select a gift and hand it out.  It was the first year that she really got the concept of taking turns and she was super excited every time her turn came around.  This time, she selected a flat, rectangle shaped gift and handed it to me.  I looked at the tag and it was from her – but I knew that anyway; her big smile gave it away.

The gift was wrapped beautifully.  My mom (or Nona as the grandkids call her) had helped Olivia wrap the gift.  Carefully, I opened the gift, wondering what treasure my niece had given to me.  I was so enamored of Olivia, she honestly could have given me anything and I would have been delighted.  It was a white plastic-framed blue painting.  I looked closely and saw that there were white clouds and green pine trees and large round purple object in the middle with a little purple square below it.  There seemed to be a little person painted just below the square and the person had very long dark hair flowing down to the ground (as though the person had two black pony tails).  I wasn’t exactly sure what the painting depicted but I knew that Olivia had painted (that was pretty clear).  My mom had been teaching her how to paint on canvas for a while.  “It’s beautiful Olivia!”  I exclaimed.  “What is it?”  I should probably have known.

“Auntie, it is Rapunzel and the Hot Air Balloon.”  I was puzzled.  “O, why is Rapunzel in a hot air balloon?”  I knew there had to be a story behind the painting.  Olivia put her little hands on her tiny hips and said, almost indignantly, “Because Auntie… she was tired of waiting for the prince to save her and she decided to save herself.”  My eyebrows shot up (they would have gone through the ceiling if that had been possible).  From the mouth of babes came the statement that coursed through my entire body as though it were intravenously injected.  “She was tired of waiting for the prince to save her and she decided to save herself,” I repeated.

It was such an amazing statement and from such a small child. How could she know what I had failed to realize for over thirty years?  I had always thought of myself as being an independent woman.  I was proud of the fact that I never depended on a guy.  In fact, I had been told by many a friend that maybe that was why I was still single… I never let a guy know I needed him.  I could fix most things around my house and if I couldn’t, I could pay a professional.   However, the truth was that I had held out a little on the self-declaration of independence.

 I had always wanted to own a home but thought that I would have to wait until I met the right guy to do it.  I thought I would need his income, his support and his help around the house.  I had thought “what if I bought a house and then met a guy that had a house?  What would I do then?”  I had all of these imaginary scenarios bumping around in my head as though they had any basis in reality.  The reality was that I was 35, single and had no prince charming in sight.  If I wanted to own a home (which at that point was probably my number one desire), then I was going to have to do it myself.  Waiting around for my prince to come to the “rescue” was no longer an option.  I would rescue myself and assert the last piece of my independence.

That January, under the steam of the inspiration from a three year old sage and through a generous gift from my parents, I was able to purchase a beautiful townhouse.  By the end of February, I was moved into the house that I would live in for eight years – four of which would be with my future husband.  The first thing I hung in my new home, was the painting “Rapunzel and the Hot Air Balloon.”  Throughout the years, the painting has served as a visual reminder of the power of choice and true independence.

Nine years after that personal Christmas miracle, I am in my new home, in a new state with my husband Emmett.  Yesterday, as I attempted to organize my writing room, I knew I needed a little inspiration.  I reached for my own hot air balloon and hung it on my wall.  Inspiration is now but a glance away.

Emmett, Olivia and me on Christmas Eve 2009



2011 - The Year of the Power of Choices

2012 has dawned and as most people look forward to the new year, I would like to take a few moments to look back and review the year of amazing changes.  I can safely say that 2011 was the most eventful year of my life… more changes occurred in 2011 than I thought were even possible.  When I think of all that has happened, I wonder how it was possible?  How is it that so much can get accomplished in one little year?

As Emmett and I were driving to work yesterday (we both work at a local restaurant called Roux), we were talking about how surreal it still is that we are living in Alabama.  We’ve only been here just over a month, so I suppose it’s not that odd that we should still be scratching our heads and asking what the heck happened.   How is it that we ended up in Montgomery, Alabama (of all places) from Plymouth, Massachusetts (or Master-two-shits as they call it down here)?   I can safely say that one year ago, or even six months ago, Montgomery, AL was not on our radar.  So what happened?  What follows reads a bit like one of those Christmas letters that families send out… better that than a fruit cake I guess.

January 2011:  It was a new year and Emmett and I had made a resolution that we were going to make a much needed change in our lives.  We were living at White Cliffs in a nice two-bedroom townhouse but were paying an exorbitant $800+ a month for club and condo fees.  This did not include our mortgage payment. We were hemorrhaging money with no end in sight.  We had been trying to sell the property for over two years with little to no interest.  The only way out was to give the townhouse back to the bank.  We just weren’t sure what the time line would be.   It almost didn’t matter though.  We were resolved to make a change.  We decided we would look for a new place to live and let the bank deal with their time line in their own time.

February 2011:  We heard from the bank that held our mortgage and they agreed to a deed in lieu and notified us that we would have to move at some point soon.  It could be eight weeks or it could be six months.  They didn’t have a move date for us.  Emmett and I had been looking for suitable rentals and we finally found one that we could both agree on.  It was smaller than we really liked (with no storage space at all), but it was closer to the train station for me.  As I was commuting a total of four hours a day, even twenty minutes a day closer made all the difference in the world.

March 2011:  We moved into our new home (rental).  It was quite the effort.  I had lived in my townhouse for eight years so there was a lot of “stuff” to either move or divest myself of.  Emmett and I had a lot of help from his friends Brian and Thanh and from my friend Laura.  They were virtual pack mules for us.  They got us moved into our new home, set up with a wood stove, unpacked and set up in no time at all. 

During this time, my work situation was unraveling quickly.  I had told my boss back in December that I would be looking for a new job as I could sense that the Department had changed and there really wasn’t a position for me there any longer.  It was now three months later and my boss was anxiously awaiting my announcement that I would be moving on.  It wasn’t happening as soon as either of us would like and she was beginning to apply pressure.

April 2011: Emmett came home one day and announced to Kylie and me that we would be getting a kitten.  He had wanted one for a long time.  We already had Pussen but Emmett felt that she needed a playmate.  We had tried to introduce full grown cats to Pussen before but with very little success.  Just picture the Tasmanian Devil x 2.  Not nice.  I worried for the safety of a kitten but Emmett assured me it would be fine.  In mid-April he brought Koko home.  She was just eight weeks old and cute as could be.  A little brindle (black, red, blonde, white) with huge eyes and a propensity for “trilling.”  Right away we took to Koko.  She was great with her litter box.  She liked to sleep on my chest at night and she had the loudest purr any of us had ever heard.  She was happy and so were we.  Kylie loved her and it made her happy too.  After a week and half of Pussen hissing and swatting at Koko (and Koko swatting back at Pussen), we came into the living room one day to see the two of them cuddled up together sleeping.  Emmett was right.  It would be fine.

BFF's

May 2011:   In early May Emmett took a trip to Montgomery for a Texas Steak House reunion.  Years ago he had worked at the local (now defunct) restaurant and made a ton of friends.  Back in the day, they were all a bunch of young kids, partying and having a crazy time.  Now they were full grown adults, reconnecting, partying and having a crazy time.  This was a great trip for Emmett has reconnected with a lot of old friends and started networking. 

Directly after returning from Montgomery, Emmett started a new job.  He was a service and operations manager for EMG Surgical.  It was a good job as it paid well and was a Monday – Friday, 8:00 – 5:00 job.  Emmett had craved a job with normal hours for a long time.  We were both really grateful for the timing of this job.

June 2011:  While Emmett was busy settling into his job, my boss was busy figuring out ways to make me want to quit.  I had been hired as a grant manager back in 2007 but was suddenly being made to clean out offices, dust file cabinets, move a library of books around and pretty much do what no one else wanted to do.   Clearly I was being pressured to quit on my own. There was no cause to fire me.  My reviews had always been above average.  My attendance was great.  It turned out there was just a personality conflict.  My boss asked to meet with me and offered me my same job but at a $10K salary cut and a one year (unprotected) contract.  Obviously, I declined her “deal.”  At that point, my boss told me that I would be laid off then as of September.  This was great news for me because I was not interested in continuing to work with my boss.  Harvard offers an amazing layoff package and helps to find their laid off employees new jobs.  I was thrilled.   I was also thrilled to learn that the deed in lieu had gone through earlier that month and that I was no longer a home owner.

July 2011:  Kiera (Emmett’s oldest daughter) had arrived at the end of June and was settling into hanging out with us for the summer.  She was really sad as she had left her boyfriend of two years behind in Indiana and her mom was now moving to Montgomery, Alabama.  She tried really hard to keep her chin up but she was clearly bummed.  Even trips to the beach didn’t help much.  Kylie was missing her mom who she had only seen once during the past year.  I could feel that change needed to happen again but I didn’t know exactly what that meant for us.

 I took a little weekend trip away (with eleven girlfriends) to Martha’s Vineyard for Shark Weekend.  The weekend was meant to help me relax and get away from “real life.”  All I could think about that weekend though was how unhappy the girls seemed and how I wanted to help.  On the way back from Martha’s Vineyard, as I stood on the bow of the ferry talking to my friend Lisa, I suddenly had a revelation.  What if Emmett and I moved to Montgomery?  As soon as I had the thought, I knew 100% that we would.  It just made sense.  My job was ending; most of Emmett’s relatives lived in Montgomery; most of the girls’ relatives lived in Montgomery too.  If we moved to Montgomery, the girls would have both of their parents nearby for the first time since they were small children.  Emmett spoke to his ex-wife who agreed that if we moved to Montgomery, she would be agreeable to a 50/50 custody agreement.  That sweetened the pot.

August 2011:  We had a plan.  We knew that sometime in either December or January we would be moving to Montgomery, Alabama.  We didn’t know all of the details but we would work them out.  We always did, didn’t we?  A fly in the ointment popped up. In mid-August my boss called me into her office to tell me that she was not going to lay me off and then proceeded to give me a warning for some imagined infraction.  It was clear to me that she was now going to try and fire me.  If she fired me, I would not be able to use Harvard as a reference and I would have no support from them at all.  I was a bit panicked to be truthful.  This could really mess with our plans.  I called my union representative and explained what was going on.  I contacted Human Resources and got them involved.  I didn’t know what, if anything could be done to help me but I was not going to sit by and just be unceremoniously fired because someone didn’t like me.

September 2011:  Started with my 45^th birthday party.  So many friends and family came by the house to wish me well. We grilled and cooked and drank and partied.  We listened to great music and danced.  By this point everyone knew our plans to move.  Some of our friends were really supportive and some were vocal in the fact that they thought we were making a mistake. Isn’t it always like that?  You want 100% support from everyone but there’s always someone who thinks they know what’s best for you (and it doesn’t seem to be what you have planned).    In mid-September, my work situation cleared itself up.  I would be leaving Harvard (after over six years) in mid-October and it was on my own volition.  I had worked it out so that I would be able to move to Montgomery in late November without hardship.  The move plans were on!

October 2011:  Emmett gave his notice to EMG Surgical.  I gave my notice to Sushi Joy.  I finished up my job at Harvard and left peacefully.  It was a weird feeling to walk out of the building I had been in for so long and know that I was not going to return.  As I drove out of Boston on my last day of work, I opened my car window and shouted “Woo Hoo!” at the top of my lungs.  My commuting days were over!  Dealing with an unhappy boss was over!  I really was starting a new life.

 At the end of October, Emmett and I took a long weekend trip to Montgomery to house hunt.  We thought we might want to rent something in East Montgomery as that’s where the girls lived.  During that weekend, we viewed about seven homes in East Montgomery and nothing was right for us.  If I liked it, Emmett hated it.  If Emmett liked it, I hated it.  We knew we had to have a house that we both liked.  We had transitioned from thinking we might rent to thinking that if the right situation came along, we would probably do an owner finance situation. 

On Monday, just hours before we were going to board the plane and go back to Massachusetts, my sister-in-law Judy suggested we look at two houses on the street behind her house (which is in the Old Cloverdale part of town).  Both houses were for sale and one was also available for rent.  There was no mention of owner finance.  Emmett and I resolved that if we had to rent, because owner finance was not available, then we probably would.  We took a look at the first house which on the outside was beautiful but was a hot mess on the inside.  The price was amazing -- $60K!  We could buy it without owner finance but it would take us years to get the house into any kind of suitable living condition.  Then we looked at the house next to it – the house that was also for rent.

 As soon as I stepped over the threshold, I knew in my heart of hearts that this was THE place.  It was a yellow shingled Cape style house and made me feel as though I were at home in Massachusetts.  The house had hardwood floors, plantation shutters, granite counter tops, huge bedrooms for everyone and even a writing room for me.  I did what no one should ever do in front of a real estate agent; I ran around the house screaming about everything I loved about it.  The best part though was that the house backed up to Tom and Judy’s backyard.  What were the chances?  It’s as though it were meant to be.  The only question remained though, could we afford it?  We asked about renting the house.  It would be $1,250 a month; the same as what we paid for the much smaller house in Massachusetts.  The real estate agent asked if we were interested in buying the house.  We were but our credit was shot.  We filled out the rental application and headed back to Massachusetts.  We really hoped that we would be able to at least rent this property.  It was beautiful.

 As we got off the plane in Boston, Emmett’s phone rang, it was the real estate agent and he let us know that the owners were willing to finance us.  The house was ours if we wanted it and for a total of $950 a month.  We could not believe how well things were coming together.

November 2011:  This month flew by like crazy.  Emmett finished up his job at EMG Surgical and I finished up my job at Sushi Joy.  I was officially unemployed.  Basically I had worked non-stop since I had been 14 years old and it just felt weird to no longer have to report to someone.  We were so busy packing though that there was not a moment to relax.  At the same time, as though I was not busy enough, I had decided that I would start on my life- long ambition to write.  I started this blog.  Then one day, the movers came and our house was empty. All of our belongings (other than two suitcases full of clothes and our cats) were on their way to Montgomery.  We cleaned up our rental and drove to our friend Laura’s house.  She would host us for our final week in Massachusetts.

Laura and her children were amazing. They never acted as though we were putting them out at all.  We were treated like royalty in her home.  It was the best week ever spending all of that time with her and the kids.  If it was possible, we grew even closer that week.  I knew that when the day came for me to board that plane (with a one way ticket), it would be really hard on my friend.  It was hard on me.  Laura is even more nostalgic than I am, so I knew it would be hard.  All I can say about this is that it was one of my top two hardest goodbyes.  We both shed a bucket of tears.  Our friend Joe showed up at 6:00 a.m., as requested, loaded Emmett, me and our cats into his truck and drove us to the airport.  I was so grateful for his helpfulness and cheerful attitude that morning.  I don’t think I could have stood it if he had been a crabby morning person. 

A small note about traveling with cats:  Don’t.  Ours were as good as could be expected (thanks to kitty Xanax) and they survived the trip but it is super stressful on both the owner and the cat.  The poor things were put into one storage container and didn’t see the light of day (other than being pulled out by TSA to ensure that we had not packed a cat bomb or something) for seven hours.   I hope we never have to do it again.

I admit that when the plane took off from Boston and I saw the beautiful, shining city disappear through the clouds, I did shed a few tears.  The thought that I had formulated on the ferry on the warm July day had come to fruition.  I was Alabama bound.

December 2011:  Emmett’s girls were thrilled that their dad was now living in Alabama.  They came over the house to see what their new rooms looked like.  The rooms were perfect for them.  Kiera’s had loads of closet space and Kylie’s had an attic playroom attached (a life-long wish of hers).  The movers had not yet arrived and so the house was empty.  Our cars had not even left Massachusetts as there had been a hiccup in the transportation plan.  The household belongings would arrive in five days and the cars a few days later.  In the meantime, we bought a King sized bed and put it in our empty bedroom.  Tom and Judy lent us a few chairs and some other household items so that we could at least stay in our house – albeit camping.  Within the first two weeks of arriving in Montgomery, we had our household basically set up and our cars.  We even managed to land part time jobs waiting tables at a local restaurant called Roux.  Somehow we even managed to find a Christmas tree farm and buy a gorgeous tree and decorate that as well. 

We hosted Christmas in our new home for most of Emmett’s family.  It was a beautiful day and everyone was super excited that we were there with them.  I tried to implement touches of my mother's Christmas (big tree, delicious food all day long, stockings, and taking turns picking out gifts to hand out).  At the end of the weekend, several of Emmett’s family members had exclaimed that it was the best Christmas that they had in years.  Kiera and Kylie were glowing from happiness.  It was really great to know that we had not only changed our lives for the better but our family’s as well.  We had hoped that we had made the right choices throughout the year.  It was becoming more and more clear that our instincts were right.  In one year we: moved twice, got a kitten, got jobs, lost jobs, got jobs again, lost a house,  bought a house, figured out the custody of children and moved out of state… in no particular order.

Now:  Here we are, one year after making our resolution to change.  We are settling in nicely in our new home.  Emmett is actively seeking a full time position in the restaurant management world.  I am also looking for a new employment opportunity but will be very selective in what it is I choose to do and who it is I work for.  We have come so far in this past year.  I have come to realize that I do not want to have a four hour crazy commute (my commute now is less than five minutes each way); I do not want to live in a house that I am paying out of my eyes for and that has no storage space.  I know now that I have choices and that the choices I make can really change my life.  I’m not sure that I knew the power of choices before this year.  This year has shown that if you really want to change, it is your choice whether you make it happen or not.  I cannot wait to see what this next year brings.  One thing I do know is that it can’t possibly be as chalk full of changes as this year has been.  It’s just not possible… or is it?

Our new home!