How quickly change happens
I don’t mean the change itself. I mean the more subtle changes within.
Lauren moved to Chicago last Monday. She drove back this weekend to finish clearing out.
Clearing out means taking whatever else she needs, marking what the mover will take, preparing the remaining items for a yard sale, tossing out or taking to Bargain Box or My Lucky Day (like Good Will stores.) Of course, getting ready for the yard sale, in Lauren’s case, meant taking yard sale stuff over to my house!
Here’s the thing: When Lauren came back to Fairfield after less than a week in Chicago, she already didn’t live here any more. The Lauren who left on Monday was a different Lauren who returned this weekend. And I, too, was in a different space.
To both of us, it felt like we were in a science-fiction story. Who was Lauren anyway? What was she doing here? Who was I? I wasn’t who I was a week before. It was like being caught in a time-warp. It was like being strangers in a strange land!
This didn’t really have to do with Lauren’s being away. She has been away many times for a much longer period of time. But this time she had been away with the intention of permanence.
When Lauren moved to Chicago last week, I had to get used to the idea that she wasn’t here any longer. No one lived next door in Lauren’s apartment. There were no sounds from there. I was the only one here on this acre and a half.
Teeny-Weeny, Lauren’s black cat, adjusted to coming to my door. And I had adjusted to the silence and the long spans without interruption more than I realized.
So, not only was Lauren separated from her life here, I too was separated from her life here. It was sort of like, instead of being mother and daughter, we had become two women.
And all this interior change seemed to have taken place in the blink of an eye.
Godwriting is a blog by Gloria Wendroff and is about Gloria's daily life as the Godwriter of the Heavenletters project that is having a profound effect on the lives of people around the world.
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