Not a Relaxing Summer - Again

Here we go again!

Summer 2016 - my last summer session at Ivy Tech.  I was retiring at the end of the summer session. I was teaching one small class of ENGL 112 at Rochester, a class that really shouldn't have run because of numbers, but it did because Gloria pushed for it.  I saw it as justice for having to teach a large class a few summers previous and receiving the same pay as I was for teaching the small class.  I knocked myself out for that large class, grading all the time, not enjoying the summer at all, and spending all of my time in the sunroom on the laptop. 

I was also nervous during that summer semester.  I had to clean out my office.  That was traumatic enough because I really liked being the professor and having my own office and office hours and my own phone and it was fixed up really cute.  But it was just a room and it was time to clean it out and move on.

When I found out I had to work an extra week before my official end date, I was crushed.  I really did NOT want to do that.  I was told I didn't have to go to the meetings in Indianapolis, the first faculty meeting in Kokomo, or the school meetings.  I was told I could work at the Logansport campus and prepare everything for my last Adjunct Orientation and just check in with Kevin each day.  Kevin told me just to stay at home, but I am not one to just do that and feel good about it.  Dad raised me to be honest, to show integrity, and I stayed every minute I was supposed to until the last day. 

It was a little sad watching everyone else prepare for fall classes and I wasn't. It was sad not being able to chat with everyone because they were too busy with their own meetings and prepartions.  I felt like I just didn't belong any more, and I really didn't.  I had been replaced. I was finished there.  I was retiring.

Summer 2017 - Mom died on May 19.  The heart valve replacement surgery was December 15 and she had not returned home from that, being in and out of the hospital, going to the rehabilitation center, and finally Chapel Hill Retirement Home in Canal Fulton.  I knew she would not be returning, so I had started to clean out things, little by little, while she was still alive.  The refrigerator.  The piles of newspapers and magazines by her chair in the living room.  The piles and piles of junk by her chair in the dining room. Canned goods.  The pile in the corner of the kitchen.  But after her death, the real work began to clean out the house, take things we wanted to keep, and prepare for the auction. This meant that we spent most of the summer in Ohio.  I really felt like it was our 'vacation home' without the vacation part of it.  We would go for a week, come home for a week.  Return for a week.  Come home for 10 days.  Return with the kids.  Come home for a few days.  It was exhausting.  It was necessary.  It gave us the opportunity to know Melanie and Bryan and the girls better, to visit Ryan and Jen and the kids, and to experience some new restaurants and discover ice cream!  When the auction date came, August 28, I was more than ready for all of it to be over.  Our final trip there was during the Wayne County Fair week.  We haven't been back since.

Now...Summer 2018.  What we thought might be a more relaxing summer will find us moving to a new house.  I am not regretting the decision, and I think it will be a good move for us.  But going through all of our things, deciding what to take, what to pitch, what to donate, and what to sell at a yard sale---here we go again.  Cleaning out. Packing up.  Lifestyle change.

Life is a series of changes.  We go through various seasons in our lives, all of them different from each other.  Yes we have lived in this house for 42 years and we have done so much to it to make it our own.  But we can do the same for the new place.  We can just do it a little more quickly because it is just the two of us and we have more funds at our disposal.

Yes we have memories in this house.  But it doesn't matter where we are, the memories will remain.  And we can make new ones in the new house.

Many people reach this same stage in their lives and downsize.  However the house we are moving into has more room - for family gatherings.  Since Gary's folks are gone, it is falling to us to host the large Siemens family get-togethers.  Mike, Angie, and Nick need a place to stay.  We can provide that.  It will be easier for our small Siemens family to gather also.  More room to spread out.

And finally we will be closer to the girls and the kids.  Some people have mentioned that when they retire, they look forward to being a couple, to letting their children live their own lives apart from them, and seeing the grandchildren often, but not frequently. One fellow teacher warned me to be able to say no to Megan and Hilary since if we didn't, we would be babysitting all the time.

I don't see it like that.  Family is important to us.  It is important to our girls.  We help each other. We support each other.  I know that both Megan and Hilary treasure the time they spent with the grandparents and have so many memories from the farm, the insurance office, and from their attending each and every concert, program, game they were in.  I want to do the same with Landon, Tessa, Cooper, Owen, and Lynnlee.  I want them to be able to stop by, to spend the night, to work on their animals, to come over and bake cookies, to help me plant flowers, without having to plan an hour drive each way to do so.

No, it won't be a relaxing summer. But it will be one of changes.  And that is what our lives are all about.