I'm sorry, did ya'll think I was deceased or something? I didn't mean to make anyone worry. Do you ever worry about that? Like, that one of us will die and we won't know what happened? I thought about that one day a few months after I started blogging and thought how horrible that would be. I obsessed about it for a while. Then it happened. My blogstream friend, Zhyg, died. Well, I knew he was very, very sick, but death...........it's so final. I cried when Zhyg died. Some people think that this whole blog thing isn't real. But Zhyg was real to me. And I cried real tears. That made him even more real.
Anyway, I didn't mean to make you worry. POH worries sometimes. Not as much as I used to, but still ...............sometimes.
My husband is putting in his letter of resignation today. Retirement really. He will be done working in two weeks. I can tell he's a little apprehensive................what will he do when he doesn't HAVE to get up at 5am and drive an hour from the lake to a back-breaking job for an unappreciative boss who hasn't given him, or anyone else in the store for that matter, a raise in the last fifteen years? Ooooops, did I sound a little sarCAStic there?
Oh dear, whatEVER will he do? Well, I'm sure POH can think of a few things. *wink*
We have already taken up square dancing again. Square dancing has an unjustified bad rep. It's a thinking dance, donchaknow, good for the brain cells. Seriously. You have to follow the caller, and you don't know what he's going to call until it comes out of his mouth, and you can't blank out for a second, or you will screw up the whole square of eight people.
That's why you see a lot of older people doing it. It's good for the brain cells. If you get a chance to do it, you should. It's actually quite fun. We are talking about ballroom dancing too. Mr. Hope's never been much interested in that, but hey....times change, right?
There is a Jewish cantor...............POH calls him "The Rabbi", even though he isn't really a Rabbi..........at our square dancing group. See, I told you square dancing wasn't for squares.
Anyway, the Rabbi teaches a Torah class on Saturdays in one of the towns I live near at the lake. I asked him if I could come even if I have no intention of converting to Judaism. He said YES!
YAY!
Now, you may wonder why POH would want to spend her Saturday mornings going to a class on the Torah, but that is just about one of the most interesting things I can think of to spend my time doing.
My best friend for many years was a woman who was born and raised Jewish but converted to Christianity as an 18 year old. She was promptly disowned by her family. She is what you would call a Messianic Jew. A 'Jew for Jesus'. She taught me so much about the Old Testament. Mostly about how all the feasts and festivals are fulfilled in Christ. I loved it. I don't think my Rabbi friend realizes how much I am going to love learning about the Torah.........the five books of Moses............from a real Rabbi. Okay, a cantor. Close enough.
I don't view 'retirement' as the end of anything. To me it is the beginning. MY 'job' has always been full of beginnings and endings. I gave birth............the babies grew up and went to school.......and went to school..........and went to school.......POH had to wait a long time for her babies to stop going to school so they could have babies of their own. In a sense, they never did stop going to school. They teach in school so................they are still going to school, aren't they?
Anyway, those babies all came and went. Everything changes when you are a mother. Nothing is static. Motherhood is all about the moving and shifting of real life.
POH kept taking more babies. Other people's babies. They came and went. It was hard. You learn to deal. What choice do you have? Gabriel is gone. I'll get to see him. That's nice. It's not the same as raising him though. You deal with it. You have a choice not to do it, but then you won't reap the reward of the difference you can make in someone's life so................you deal.
Beginnings and endings. This is Mr. Hope's ending. I know for a fact that he's glad. I also see some........well, I already called it apprehension. That's what I think it is.
I told him that it's the end of a job I never felt he was supposed to do anyway. Don't get me wrong, he is very good at his job........VERY good. He has given a 150% to it over the years and he is one of the best in the whole area. Maybe THE best. When Robert Wegman, the big man on the East Coast Supermarket campus, a few weeks before he died, tells your boss to make sure he hangs on to you, you know you just got a compliment from the best of the best. Did the boss listen? Who knows? It doesn't matter now, does it? I'll keep my thoughts to myself on that.........I'll just tell you guys......but I'm glad he's leaving.
I've always had my beginnings and endings. This is his ending. Now it's time to get on to our next beginning.
Granted, we don't look as young as we used to. POH's hair is shoulder-length, not falling down her back like it was when she was 19 and wearing bell-bottoms and a navy blue pea coat with those big buttons with the little anchors on them that she got at the Army/Navy store. It was the ONLY respectable place for a little sixties girl to shop back then. You know. Mr. Hope has gray hair now, and a few crinkles around his eyes. He isn't quite as thin as he used to be but he still has the figure of a much younger man.
He's been working since he was 13. He worked 40 hours a week throughout high school. When he picked me up at school in that 1969 yellow 351 Mustang with the black scoop on the front and the black leather upholstery, POH felt pur-ur-ur-tee cool. What I didn't know back then though was that that car represented something other than what it was. In the end it wasn't a symbol of coolness, even though it was a HOT car........it was a symbol of Mr. Hope's work ethic. When I married him, I didn't get a life of Mustangs. The next car we bought, after baby number two was born, was an orange Pinto. Sheeeeuuuuuuuuuu, I HATED that car. But you know what? I still had the hard-working guy with the good work ethic. That meant something then and that means something now. Especially now.
He's worked hard. We've both worked hard. We'll still work hard. This time it will be on our time clock though, won't it? Life is not static. It moves and changes and flows. It never ends, you know...........it just changes venue. Today we live here................tomorrow we will live There............
POH's excited.............let's get started!
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