No more hiding for me.
We knew it was coming but we didn’t know when.
My husband has gotten a job out of state, in Las Vegas. With the Air Force.
The job situation in the glorious place where we live is so dire this offer is too good to pass up. It will be a three-year commitment, at the end of which we’ll have health insurance for life and a secure way to send our daughter to college.
Why am I sad? I usually am when things change, even for the better. I’m also, of course, relieved and a little bit hopeful. Yet sadness is a default emotion. Maybe that’s why I wrote a series of posts about depression a few months ago. Maybe I’m just a sad-sack, a fruit-loop, or a box of instant jello. I don’t know.
We will not, at least at first, be living all together in Las Vegas. More specifically, at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. SeeSpotRun and I will be staying in Missoula for at least the first of the three years.
This is probably my biggest worry. SSR! What do you need, dear daughter? How will you tell me what your twelve-year-old self needs? How will I know? Is it better to stay, or to go?
Change always brings growth, but it also throws me back into my bad coping habits. I fear more, argue more. If I’m not careful, pretty soon I’m reliving every change that’s ever happened to me, my loved ones, endangered species, the oppressed, and the entire effing planet. This is not good for anyone.
On a solo drive in the moonlight and mountains tonight, I metaphorically placed SSR and Hubby in the hands of a benevolent Higher Power. Next I turned on some old and new favorite music on my iPod. Nothing too serious or dour (Clapton/River of Tears-- definite no). I needed beats and melodies and words and voices. Here’s my short list.
Mix Up, Mix Up…Bob Marley
Near Wild Heaven…REM
Hallelujah…Leonard Cohen
Stay a Little Bit Longer…UB40
Oh to Be in Love…Kate Bush
Seminole Wind…John Anderson
Yo Vengo Aqui…Compay Segundo
Two Princes…Spin Doctors
Paper Gangsta…Lady Gaga
Pocketful of Sunshine…Natasha Bedingfield
Not the Way…Gregory Isaacs
Hardstone—Uhiki (Pinye’s Remix)
Hello Stranger…Emmylou Harris
What about you? What music comforts and grounds you in times of fear or flux?
