Life Moves On

I finally did it.  I gave notice at work today that I'll be leaving the end of August.  I'm going home.  Home to be with my husband.  We will be empty nesters when Kaylonnie leaves on her mission on September 20th.  Since I became pregnant with Molly two weeks after we were married, we've spent almost 35 years (in December) raising kids.  It is finally time for Danny and I to spend some alone time.

Change is never easy.  The first 17 years of our marriage, I stayed at home with my kids, and worked part-time in law offices in the evenings a couple of nights a week.  It was not easy to go back to work full-time.  I had hoped for two more years at home until Kaylonnie was in the first grade, but we really needed me to work, so I went back two years earlier than planned.  Quitting my job is not easy now.  There will be adjustments (mostly financial), but other adjustments, as well.  We'll need to keep me busy, and we'll need to adjust to being home with each other -- but that's the part I'm looking forward to doing.

There is some sadness involved with this change.  Over the years, I've worked in many law offices.  Some wonderful, some not so wonderful.  This last four years, I have really enjoyed my job.  I've been working for a nonprofit organization, Pacific Legal Foundation, as a legal secretary making sure that the Constitution is upheld, and defending the little guy from big government.  These four years I have really felt like I was doing something important -- something more than the ordinary.

I will move on to other projects now.  I've always wanted to write.  I don't know if I'm any good at it.  I only have a high school diploma with a year of business college.  There was a time when I really cared about someday actually writing the great American novel.  Actually, my real desire was to write children's books.  I'm guessing that I'll never be published, and that I'll never make any money at this.  At this point in my life, that doesn't matter -- what matters is that I write for myself.  If I write a couple of children's stories that are not published, at least my grandchildren will have them.  Maybe I'll write short stories.  Maybe I'll just continue writing this blog.  I don't know yet.  Whatever I do, it will be what feels right for me.  I write for me.

So, in about six weeks, if you are local, you may see me walking around Curtis Park with Danny, hand in hand.  More likely you'll see Danny 100 feet ahead of me, with me struggling to keep up!  I'll be taking back the grocery shopping, or some of it.  I'll be doing most of the cooking again.  I've missed that.  I'll be getting healthy again.  Mostly, I'll be enjoying my marriage, my kids, and my grand kids.