Transitions

Comfortable and predictable.  That’s how this year started with Dick Clark‘s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve, of course, counting down to the new year. In a fleeting, giddy moment of anticipation, we wondered what 2012 held.

Transitions.  Major, life-changing transitions.

My dear in-laws were hospitalized–yet again–and we forced ourselves to accept the hard truth that they couldn’t live on their own anymore.  On Valentine’s Day–fifty-six years to the day that they welcomed their first child, the two of them moved into rehab/nursing home. Now Dad is in a family care home; Mom is still at the rehab center.

My mother’s mind is spry, but her body is definitely 84.  I don’t have a lot of time with her.

Age is messing with us, too.  We’ve had to accept our own physical as well as financial limitations this year. I now have a prescription for a cholesterol-lowering drug, a big concession for a no-meds person like me.

But the biggest personal transitions involve my kids.  Both are about to launch their new lives far away.  In a few days my daughter is graduating from college and flying to Chicago for an interview.  Her late-blooming brother just found the perfect apartment in Minneapolis to restart his life.  My birthday will be spent helping him pack.

So long comfortable, so long predictable.  Goodbye Christmas and Easter with the kids (at least for now) and New Year’s with Dick Clark.

Hello fast and furious transitions.  No choice but to take the advice of David Bowie, “Turn and face the strange changes…”