Life in Limbo

I call myself a Lady In Waiting. Not the kind you think. Not the one who is a valued, pampered member of sub-royalty trained to decorate the environment around and serve a female member of the royal household. I call myself that because I feel like I have spent a long time waiting for something to happen, usually to or for someone else, not me. It has been this way for a long time.

One expects it to be thus when the primary caretaker of three young children. I have had to be constantly at the ready to coordinate, facilitate, and act upon the needs of their developing lives, a job I have done willingly, joyfully, and well. But, for the past few years, the kids haven't needed me so much. Still, I wait.

Wait to be summoned to assist a kid, wait to be needed, wait for George to retire, wait for a decision to be made about what town, or area of the U.S., for that matter, we might end up in after his constantly put-off retirement date. Waiting to get a dog until we have a place of our own, at my husband's request. (Seems having a dog for kids is understandable, not so for the desires of a middle-aged woman.) Waiting to get a horse of my own, at my husband's request. Waiting to move to warmer climes so that I don't hurt so much. I have become stagnated in indecisiveness and limbo.

And, I don't know how to restart. I can't remember how to live for myself. Even when I have time off without responsibility or schedule, I seem to exist in a self-imposed lethargy, waiting, keeping myself available. For what? I don't know. It is as if I am 'not-me-without-someone' anymore. What the hell is that about? I am a strong and decisive, successful woman who has accomplished much and broken through many gender barriers throughout several careers.

If I go away for some R & R, if I am alone, my stomach is in a knot, afraid that I won't be available if someone needs me. In my head, I plan the return route, the fastest way to get to whomever needs me. And my fears are not unfounded. Over even the past few years, I have responded to a ruptured appendix, arterial bleed, broken bones, animals needing euthanasia, a cerebral hemorrhage, child stranded in a disastrous host home in Costa Rica, immediate summons to court, well, you get it. I am needed often, and, when I'm not, my entire being seems to be waiting...for...something...to...happen.

I wonder if I am crazy, or well-trained, or compulsive, or dependent on my family for my feeling of validity. Or all those things. Or none of them.

I do know that this empty-nest thing is not all that great. I am not handling it with the grace and dignity I was sure I would. I feel out of synch, slipping and not holding in my attempts at finding solid footing. I want to escape the loop; how to do so is the question...

In my dreams and fantasies, I see myself in a small remote cabin, simple but clean, with a desk and a computer on which I am completing the writing projects I have carried around in the form of outlines for decades. And, there are books; books for reference, books for relaxation, books for company, books for their smell and feel. Fresh cotton curtains billow in warm breezes that sneak in open windows. Outside is a small barn with a bay horse and the sweet smell of hay and leather. A truck in the drive, a dog at my heels. No neighbors to be seen, the smell and sound of a nearby creek. That's it.