The Great Escape
I have lived in Raleigh for almost five months now. The time has flown and dragged simultaneously. It feels like I blinked and the entire summer flew by, but at the same time, so much has gone on since June when we began our new life here.
There were fleeting moments when I didn’t think that things were going to work out. I imagined numerous ways that I could make an escape if necessary. I thought about quitting my job and going back to Winston-Salem where I wasn’t much happier, but at least I had someone to help with Kylie. I considered packing everything into (another) U-haul and driving straight to my grandmother’s house in Michigan. Even though she is no longer there to greet me, my dad is there now. When he moved, I suddenly felt like I was really, truly all alone here. It was terrifying.
I had two job offers over the past couple of months. I went back and forth with my decision making process, but I ended up turning both of them down. The little voice in the back of my mind kept telling me that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. I realized that my job is what keeps me grounded. I love the girls that I work with, and I’m good at it. I couldn’t fathom giving up the one thing that made me feel like I wasn’t useless. Continuing to run away and start over somewhere else wasn’t going to help me find who and where I am supposed to be. I still believe that Raleigh is where I was meant to end up. I just need to figure out why.
Kylie and I went to Michigan a couple of weeks ago. It is the first vacation I have taken since last October. The absence of my grandmother was as noticeable as her presence always was. I spent a lot of time walking through her house, waiting for her to show up at any moment. The hardest thing was seeing my grandfather work through his sadness. I don’t know what it’s like to love someone for as long as they were together. His heartbreak is painful to watch. I’m glad that my dad is there to help, although I don’t really think that he knows how to do exactly that. There is no fix for this. It is hard, and it sucks.
It is nice to know that if the s**t hits the fan here, I have a place to escape to. Having family around makes things easier, more tolerable. They’re the only people who have known you from the beginning who don’t really have a choice in whether you keep coming back around. They annoy the hell out of me sometimes, but I love them anyway. For now, though, I’m just trying to keep it all together. Even if things are falling apart on the inside, I have to make it look as though I am flawless on the outside. I have realized that if I fake it enough, things begin to come together just as I have pretended. Fake it ’til you make it. This is clearly the secret to my success.
A couple of days ago, I received a completely random text message from one of the girls that I work with. We never text one another unless it is work related. The message simply said, “Hey, are you okay?” It caught me a little off guard, and I immediately shot back, “Of course! Why?” She replied to me that she had just heard a pastor say something during a sermon about your neighbor in stress or struggling, and that I had randomly popped into her mind. She said that she wanted to check on me, and you know what? That meant a lot. How easy is it for us to say that everything is fine, when we honestly feel that the world is off-balance and out of line? My world has been off kilter for the last six months. Knowing that someone cared enough to ask about it made things realign a little.
Maybe my escape plan can take a raincheck.
