Summer Ghosts

I have been ghosting my blog. In fact, I kind of feel like I have been ghosting my life.

Retirement was supposed to rid me of all my problems. Make me light and free. Instead, June hit me with a wave of sadness. I didn’t know what it was or how to shake it.

At first, I wondered if it was my new job. I still don’t like the drive, but the job itself is fine. I like being in the space, and it is fun to see the excitement of discovery on people’s faces. I really enjoy the older people. Seeing the amazement in their faces when they touch the sand in the sand table or watch their two-dimensional coloring page become animated is pretty cool.

I like that I don’t have to make big decisions or monitor anyone’s growth or behavior. I’m not even sure everyone I work with knows my name.

But the days I work exhaust me. Being “on.” Being nice. Being present. I have nothing left when I get home. And then I wonder if I will ever be able to function like a normal person again.

Some of my sadness is Pam.

Losing her has been harder than anything I have ever done. I am supposed to be floating in her backyard pool with my sunglasses on, solving all the problems of the world. I reach for the phone still to tell her something.

I feel the tears come every day, but they don’t quite make it out of my eyes. They just brim right at the surface.

Putting her ashes in the ground finally might have brought closure to some of the family, but not me. Pam is just gone. And for the first time ever, I am doing life without her. I still can’t believe we aren’t growing old together on some porch somewhere.

Then there are my kids.

Shayne struggles with his voices every moment. I see it. I know it. We can pretend the meds help. We can pretend the dog helps. We can pretend sports help.

Honestly? I’m not sure anything really helps.

He does the best he can every day. I walk through life hoping the bottom doesn’t fall out for him again, while at the same time waiting for it to do just that.

Darian is another story that I just can’t write about at all. But she floats in my thoughts. I see her in my dreams, on the other side of a glass wall. I miss her so much.

I think at least once a day about just getting in my car and driving to Albuquerque, just to catch a glimpse of her. Just to make sure she is okay.

I wander around this hundred-year-old house and see all the things that need to be fixed. The sprinkler system. The weeds. The paint that needs to be touched up. The projects I thought I would have time for when I retired.

Everything just seems so overwhelming.

Maybe that is what this sadness is.

Maybe retirement didn’t make me light and free because I was expecting it to take away things that aren’t really problems I can solve. You can retire from a job. You can’t retire from being a mother. You can’t retire from grief. You can’t retire from missing someone. You can’t retire from worrying about the people you love.

And apparently, you can’t retire from yourself.

So maybe I haven’t really been ghosting my life. Maybe I have just been trying to figure out how to live in this strange new version of it.

I’m still here.

I’m just not sure yet what I’m supposed to do with all this freedom.