It’s only mid October and I feel like the amount of stuff that’s happened this year is catching up with me. The mountains have a powdered sugar dusting on the top and the trees are halfway full of warm, brightly-colored leaves. I’m craving fresh pressed apple juice everyday and gathering soft lighting for the months spent mostly indoors.
I rolled into the start of this year sicker than I’ve ever been- trapped on the couch in a fever dream for a whole week. I had a growth on my head that was so painful it hurt to rest my head. I totally missed the holidays. I tried to forge through my one week of work vacation with a trip to the mountains, but was miserable the whole time. The trip was made totally awful when Jeff received an email from his dad saying that his swollen and painful shoulder from the past several months was diagnosed as a cancerous tumor caused by Hodgkins Lymphoma. I think we will never forget finding out the news on a packed and festively-lit street in Leavenworth, WA where we mourned the life of Jeff’s dad knowing the best case scenario was still horrible and where I projected my dinner over the side of the street, still unable to keep any food down.
Getting back to work in the new year with my only week of rest spent on the couch and also grieving already the potential loss of my partner’s father was perhaps an omen of the way the year would shake out.
January came and went. I encouraged Jeff to go to see his dad ASAP, knowing the stories of my friends and family whose frail bodies couldn’t handle cancer treatment. I felt like we spent that month grieving Dave’s life even though he hadn’t lost it. We cried a lot. Our trip scheduled for late February ended up being too late.
The grief for the following months is hard to describe. His death was unexpected despite us knowing he was sick. Our lives shifted in an extraordinary way. A tectonic movement that triggered a tsunami throughout our lives.
I was simultaneously heartbroken for Jeff and also grieving a man I had spent little time with, but had planned on spending my life getting to know. I was figuring out how to support Jeff. I was grieving my future father-in-law, but silently, because my relationship with him was so miniscule compared to so many others. I spent much of that next month home alone with the dogs.
We got engaged in March - a part of this year I keep forgetting. I’m not a person who dreamed of a wedding, and I can’t help but keep putting that thing at the bottom of my priorities list. Jeff and I have become a solid team this year and marriage will solidify that even further. I am trying to take time to celebrate our love in ways that matter to me - a bottle of champagne, a nice dinner out, and eventually a wedding of some kind.
By May Jeff had quit his job and by June I had quit mine. Our values were reorganized. We became suddenly less willing to suffer awful bosses and being undervalued at our jobs. When I thought about living the rest of my life on Whidbey Island, where I had been for 12 years, I felt so saddened by the smallness of what my life would be.
We spent the months of August enjoying the lovely state of Washington and the people there that we love. We spent hours trying to catch salmon, we saw the people who mattered to us, we went to the places we hold dear, and we mourned what we were leaving behind, but felt confident that we need to leave it in the past.
So here we are finding our way in Montana, which is not easy. We are excited to start our own farm business, but struggling to find the hope and positivity that what we are doing is going to be successful. We are spending money in a way that terrifies us and not making any income yet. The wages here are less than half of what we made before.
But we have slowed down time. Which was the point of it all. The last five years went by in such a flash and less happened in that time than any other point of our lives. I’m so proud of how I grew at my job - I became a capable and kind leader, I prioritized my own learning and education, and feel like I outgrew the owners of the business I managed.
I feel like I am returning to who I am, which is surprisingly difficult and heavy work. I am believing in myself and in Jeff and what we are capable of. I’m imagining the life I want to live and trying to make sure time doesn’t fly by without me noticing.
