How much time?

I admit it – I still have those moments. For the first several months after I lost my job at the Tri-City Herald, my husband refused to drive past the building with me in the car. When he would accidentally find himself driving down Canal Drive, he would turn to me and apologize. He just didn’t want to see me hurt any more than I already was; as if the mere sight of the building could hurt me. It took me several months to be able to walk into the lobby and an entire year and a half to go beyond that to say hello to my friends.

Today I was driving down Canal, and as I drove past the Herald I felt the familiar tightness around my heart and tears pooling in my eyes. I miss it still. I’m not sure how it became so ingrained in my soul, but there it remains. I wonder if that feeling will ever go away. Mostly my anger is gone. After all, it is about choices and some of them were mine to make. There were times when I struggled over Accounting 201, or now, as I have mini meltdowns over Algebra that I find myself thinking – “darn you Tri-City Herald.”  I quickly move past those thoughts though, to the problem at hand, that thing that I must conquer.

I’d like to say that I am over it, that I have found that open window I heard so much about, but truth be told I still just feel the closing of that heavy door. I am proud of myself for doing so well in college but wonder what will come from it. I don’t know what good it is going to do me in the bigger scheme of things. As I near the end of my little education I worry about my future. This is not what I had planned, but plans, with no actual planning, are not fruitful.

On this dreary, drizzly day I will just have to forgive myself for that moment of weakness and the acknowledgement that none of us knows how much time it takes to heal the wounds. I will open the curtains and turn on a light and try to set my mind to doing schoolwork – with a more grateful heart.