Making Decisions

    My entire life every decision I have made has revolved around the people in my life: parents, husbands, children. Now everyone is either gone or no longer reliant on me. I am free to make my own decisions, and I am having difficulty making decisions without guidelines.

     One decision I did not struggle with was leaving my job. That I worked eight weeks between the time I was informed of the settlement and had the check in hand can be attributed to my inability to believe that something good could actually happen to me. In my exit interview I was asked what I liked about the job and I replied, “It was air conditioned and there was no heavy lifting.”
     Buying the motorhome made perfect sense. I have lost my home and am now renting it. I do not want it and I cannot keep up with repairs. I want my best friends (who happen to have four legs) with me.
     Buying it was the first major decision I have made on my own for myself. I researched on the internet, drove all over the east valley looking at various  motorhomes, and ended up back at the first one I looked at. I bought a 34-foot 1994 Allegro Bay. There’s a slide-out section so the living room/dining room/kitchen expands to nearly twice the width of the unit. There’s two televisions and a queen-size bed. I bought two new tires and had satellite installed. It feels right.
     I am pushing myself to enter the current decade technologically. I got a laptop computer, arranged for WiFi, bought GPS, and even an e-reader. I’m thinking about a smart phone. There have been glitches—I purchased full Geek Squad support and have been back nearly every day for help. But I’m learning.    
     Making decisions is a learning process, and I am sure I will make some mistakes. I am trying to learn to trust my intuition, make decisions, forgive myself the mistakes, and move on.  
 

Shedding Stuff

     Shedding all but the very essential material possessions has been enlightening, rewarding, guilt-inducing and cathartic. I threw away loads and loads of stuff. Throwing away is hard; I was raised to be frugal--my mother ironed and reused Christmas wrapping paper, some of it year after year. I established the rule that if it hadn’t been looked at or used in years or could be replaced for a few bucks, it was okay to throw away.
     Having the luxury of leisure and time, I was able to place some of my most valuable possessions. A favorite framed photograph found a home with a close friend who had admired it every time she visited. A cookie jar, an exact match to one I had broken as a child, was returned for safe keeping to the friend who had tracked it down. My dad’s World War II army uniform is now at the Arizona Military Museum.
     I sold things. I held three garage sales, until I figured out that I was netting less than minimum wage for hours of very hard work. My mechanic is selling the motorcycle, leather jacket and chaps. I recycled old computer components, nonfunctional televisions, battered metal shelving and scrap plumbing fixtures.
     I used some possessions to benefit others. Small kitchen appliances were sold at a garage sale to benefit a friend whose son is battling cancer. Loads of clothes and household stuff went to GoodWill; books to a charity book drive. The 1993 Buick, given to me by a generous neighbor when I broke my leg, will go to a man who suffered a broken leg after getting hit by a car while walking to his job.
     The hardest possessions to shed have been the ones that represented unfulfilled plans. I threw away the chair frames that I was going to learn how to reupholster. I sold the sewing machine on which I had learned to do little more than semi-straight lines of stitching. The Spanish instructional materials were donated.
     And now there is the house. I’ve been here 16 years. There are three beloved dogs and two cherished cats buried in the back yard. The grape vines produced a few small clusters of grapes for the first time this year. This is where I hoped and celebrated and grieved, and watched a marriage crumble. I may leave the house behind, but I will always have the memories.

The Journey Begins

     I awoke with an intense burning in my left hand from a clogged intravenous needle. Limbs heavy from the anesthetic still coursing through my veins, I willed my right hand to my abdomen, praying for the tiny incisions of laparoscopic surgery As I fingered the bandage from pubic bone to navel I struggled with the grim realization that the massive tumors removed from my pelvis had tested positive for cancerous cells. Tears flowed unchecked.
     It had been a hell of a year. I turned 60. My 30-year marriage ended on a sour note. I lost a job I loved. I was scammed out of $3,000 by a man I thought was a friend. My home was in foreclosure. After six months of soul-crushing unemployment I grabbed the first job I could find and hated it. I thought the final blow was when my precious dog Gracie and I were hit by a car while out walking one morning, leaving each of us with a broken leg. Now I was dying of ovarian cancer.
     During my week-long recovery at home, mostly alone except for the comfort of Gracie, I compiled a list of regrets. There were places I had not seen and things I had not done. There were friendships that were neglected, and relationships that had disintegrated. I was wasting time at a job I despised so I could maintain a house I no longer wanted, tending possessions I no longer cared about. There is nothing like dying to bring focus to living.
     The first catalyst to my amazing adventure was finding out I’m not dying. Not yet anyway. The tumors were cancerous, but of such low malignancy potential that I did not even require chemotherapy. What lit the fuse was a call from the attorney handling the suit against the errant driver who ran over Gracie and me. The settlement was larger, much larger, than I could have hoped. The universe was presenting me the time and means to right the wrongs and change the regrets to memories.