Careful what you wish for.....

     My life is filled with anticipation.  It has been building for some time now and each day it grows ever so slightly more.

     It began about eighteen months ago when I discovered I had a way to encourage a resolution I had been seeking for some time.  As I watched the pieces began to align and mesh almost as if I had engaged a lever on some massive machine and the gears were beginning to move.

     Our son, Joey, moved out about 15 months ago and the turmoil of having an angry teenager determined to cause havoc was removed.  Then my partner, Richard, found an opportunity to return to his previous employer, the state of Alaska.  It would mean higher pay and better benefits for him.  It would also mean he would be moving over 2000 miles away.  I encouraged him strongly to apply and then to accept the position.  He did and moved to Juneau just over a year ago.

     I knew that if I was encouraging and non-committal at the same time he would gravitate toward what was best for him with the belief that the separation would be temporary at best -- something that I knew otherwise.  Our relationship had deteriorated slowly and by the time he departed our interactions were of friends with common financial interests.

     Six months after he left I traveled to Juneau for a week to see what the area was like.  To live there one must have an island living mentality.  There is no direct, easy access in or out.  One must arrive by plane or ship.  The same can be said for all supplies.  It is not uncommon for shipments to be delayed and for stores to run out of certain goods.

     There are some who are psychologically adaptive to such isolated living and others who are not.  Richard had not wanted to leave when he had and was happy to return to his element.  Had someone seen what I was orchestrating I might have been chastised for "not giving it a proper chance," but I went looking for justification for not moving there and reasons that bolstered my position were plentiful.  It allowed for me to step out of the relationship officially with the fault falling to circumstance.

     One of the benefits of his employment with the state is that as long as Richard is employed there Joey can attend the state university tuition free.  So he was strongly encouraged to attend a college he had not considered and with  few alternatives that offered any promise, Joey allowed himself to be cajoled into applying.

     His grandmother and her siblings realized that this was his only viable opportunity to leave the area and gathered their resources to help him.  Had it not been for their oversight and pushing him forward it is doubtful he would have accomplished what was needed to apply and then relocate.

      He is also now in Juneau and his classes begin tomorrow.  He is very happy to be starting anew in a new environment where no one is aware of his birth family's reputation and he can create his own personae.  (His mother, aunt, cousin, and brother are all involved with drugs and this is a small town).  I have no fear that he will return unexpectedly and complicate my plans.  The airfare is the cheaper of the two ways to get there but it is still very expensive.  He went to Juneau with no return ticket.

     For the first part of all this I felt guilty that things were going as I had seen them possible to do.  Everything fell into place.  The part that has allowed this all to happen has been my remaining here.  I have been packing, organizing, repairing, and getting the household ready.  Initially I put it to Richard and our friends who witnessed what was happening as "Sooner or  later the household is going to need to be moved.  I'm just packing things up now so I don't have to do it all at once."  And that is the truth.  What I have not said is that I am looking for employment in a different area and when I find it the household belongings will go into storage until they can be delivered or in some way reclaimed.

     Richard knows I am looking for other opportunities.  He has somehow fallen back on the idea that we will reunite somewhere or that I will reconsider and move to Juneau as well.  I have done nothing to encourage this but see no advantage in correcting him.  I simply keep on on the path he knows I am taking.

     I thought initially that I would find myself dating within a year but have discovered that I have no interest in the local men.  They are, shall we say, less than dynamic.  And the more I look at them, the more I like my dog.

     I also have very little disposable income and am not able to meet my financial obligations from the income I am generating in real estate sales.  Luckily, I have quite a few personal possessions that I no longer need and as I sell them off I discover others that can also be liquidated.  It is giving me space and the ability to stay afloat.

     My goal now is to downsize myself to make moving easier.  Ideally, when I  move the only things left in Port Angeles will belong to Richard and Joey.  My belongings will be just enough.  There will be "family" things, but I have no plans to sell or dispose of them.  There is no need and I am certain that at some point one of them will want the momentos.

     I now have an inkling of what my father went through when he divorced and moved out to start anew.  It is in some ways depressing and in some ways quite liberating.

So, from time to time, I take a day and pack.  One day I packed china and crystal for eight hours.  Got most of it.  Yesterday I packed glass ornaments from Christmas.  And as I find a number of things I want, I pack a box for me.  So far I have few.

If I get an offer before I get completed with this task, it will take a massive effort to get everything taken care of in time, but still less than it would have.  This is a good thing.

                                                                            - 30 -

It only took me Twenty Years and the Internet to understand

     I can remember years ago, my father sitting in his easy chair, contemplating life and telling me, "You do the best ya can."  At the time I thought the words sounded trite and cliche'.

     Some time back, I happened on an internet site designed to let people become penpals.  That's all.  Just people who wanted to meet people in other parts of the world.  I used it halfheartedly for a short time and dropped it.  About a year ago, I got an email from the administrators saying I had not been on in a while.  And it arrived at at time when I was in the mood to entertain the idea again.

    Since then I have had conversations with people from all corners of the earth.  Everyone has tribulations in life.  I know one young gay man in an African nation that is trying to enact a death penalty for anyone homosexual.  I have spoken with people in refugee camps.  One man  lost his wife and daughter to malaria.   Another told me, "I used to have a dog but the other men caught him and ate him."

    The human condition of strife is rampant.  But so is adventure and determination to succeed.

     I have spoken delightfully with a Japanese violin maker who is on a sabbatical to Italy to learn from an 87 year-old master on the art.  Last I heard he was studying shellacs. . .and with a widow in Tennessee who has a wonderfully complex sense of humour and a love for classic black and white movies, determined to give her daughter the best opportunities to excel in life.  I am friends with an IT engineer who is moving to a new job in New Dehli as well as with a founding member of an Non-Governmental Organization (charity) that drills wells in remote villages of Africa.

    I know a college student in far eastern Russia, a draftsman in El Salvadore and an engineer in France, each of whom wants to improve their English in order to improve their lives.  It is fascinating to me to find myself as a writer and journalist to be discussing words like"of" and "that" (as a pronoun) as well as "that" (as a conjunction) -- which, naturally leads to a side of the discussion on how to decide on choosing "that" or "which" in sentence structure.

     Knowing the basics and explaining them are vastly different.  As the old phrase goes, "You teach best what you need most to learn."  You have to know it very well and keep educating yourself.  And with this site you have to be able to understand English whether it be British, Canadian, American or Australian.  (Did you know the British have an abbreviation for the word "something")?

     So, am I a good teacher?  These folks seem to think so.  My opinion?  Not so much.  But I am willing, armed with my dictionaries and style books, to do what I can.  And primarily, they want conversation.  But with someone who knows the language well enough to know it properly.

     When I look at the people I have met. . . each is in a different locale, most in different societies, and each has their lives with both the ups and downs while in their own particular environment.  I look at theirs and look at mine.  They have their troubles.  I have mine.  The only real similarity is that each of us is doing the best we can; striving to be better.  And that's really all you can do.

     The natural end result of the process will be each of us doing a little better and getting a little farther. . . and, I believe, enjoying the journey a bit more along the way.

     Pop was right, even though it has taken me close to twenty years to see it.  In life, "You do the best ya can". . . .  regardless of where you are.