The Long Goodbye

For the first time in my life, really, I'm the one leaving and not being left.  I watched kids come and go at grade school, then middle school and on.  After high school graduation I wistfully said goodbye as my college-prep cohort left to go to interesting places and schools--Yale, Trinity, Berkeley...Seattle, Boulder, New York.  Heck, even the kids who got to go down to Las Cruces were doing something different.  But I stayed in the same town and went to UNM.  It was not for lack of applying.  I'd even received a good scholarship to a small liberal arts college in the Pacific Northwest.  It was just not enough of a scholarship.   As things unraveled in my family, it became clear that I was to stay in Albuquerque and take the good scholarship from UNM and continue working at the lifeguarding job I'd had since high school.   In the end I had no debt from my undergraduate years.  That was nice.

Even whilst at UNM I tried to arrange exchange semesters where I could attend another college...but the finances proved prohibitive.  I applied to the Peace Corps and was planning on going to Africa to teach chemistry...until I found out I got into medical school.  When I applied to med school I imagined that I finally could leave the land of entrapment and go to a "real" school and have a "real" experience.  I was then soundly humbled by the tuition costs in the tens of thousands per year.  And I couldn't work to pay any living expenses.  I ended up having the state of New Mexico pay for my schooling by agreeing to STAY in NM and work when my training was complete.

Residency--now here I could get away for a few years until I had to come back and repay my loan.  See something new.  I applied all over the country for residency (as long as there was a ski area nearby)--Vermont, Dartmouth, UW, Utah, Portland.  In the end I matched in Denver.  Close...but not Albuquerque!  I hoped my boyfriend (now husband) would come with me but his job prospects did not work out that way.  I spent a grueling year of internship there, buoyed by the foxhole friendships that formed....and then transferred back to UNM to be with my guy.  I know.  We moved to Taos to fulfill my three years of service to the state.  Three became 14.  We thought we'd stay here for that three years, maybe five.   Well, then life happened...and babies...and friendships and stuff.

We traveled though--we LOVE to travel.  I spent a summer in med school doing research in Mexico City.  Mike lived in Brazil doing research.  He worked at a refugee camp in Zimbabwe  I treated myself at the end of medical school to a trip to Peru, backpacking the Inca Trail.  Mike and I married in Ireland, complete with a three week tour of our ancestral lands with his parents, brother and my mom.  We visited Belize and saw the amazing Cayes and the Carribbean.  We skied glaciers in the Canadian Rockies.  We trekked through various Mayan ruins in Mexico and Guatemala.  We took a toddler and infant to the rain forest in Costa Rica.  We sat on beaches on Kauai, Maui, Oahu and the Big Island.  Lately we skipped flying and took all three boys on road trips hitting National Parks and Monuments:  Dinosaur, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Glacier, Aztec, Chaco, Canyonlands, Arches, the Redwoods, Crater Lake, Mount Lassen...just to name a few.   Not to brag, no--just reflecting and honoring my constant desire to move beyond.

So then we decided to free ourselves from New Mexico and move to New Zealand where neither of us had ever visited.  We had fantasized in our early days together about working in underserved third-world places like Chad or Haiti.  We had romantic notions of helping the neediest and places far and wide.  But sometimes working in Northern New Mexico feels a bit like working in the third world.  And then doing that with children is a risk neither of us were willing to take.  We have friends who have worked in New Zealand and after years of thinking about it, it just felt right.  Beaches, social progress, English.  Yes.

We've had months to disassemble our life here, both mechanically and emotionally.  At first I thought that we would just slip out--do the "Irish Exit."  That's how I leave parties, I just go.  No goodbyes, no thanks.  No one notices and you can leave without any emotion, just get out.  Not get engaged in another conversation.  I thought that would be the way to go because I don't want to cry.  I don't want to feel sad--at least not the sadness you feel when you hug your friend and you start sobbing because you might never see them again and you are so over come with emotion that you are sweaty and snotty and can't breathe.  I wanted to kind of not acknowledge the largeness of the whole situation,  the fact that my cohort of friends we are leaving are those that I shared marriage, pregnancy, and early motherhood with.  I've worked with people for 14 years.  That's some heavy stuff.

I think the avoidance was also in not knowing really how to leave.  Having been the "left," and feeling sadness and disappointment around that, this was all new.  I've come to terms with my education at UNM (and feel profound gratitude for it...and for the lack of debt).  I associated the leaving with such sadness, such sentimentality.  But in having now so many months to go through the stages of grief I've arrived at the other end with acknowledged sadness, and the realization that it is all ok.  People are sad to see us go, but they are also so happy for us.  So excited.  Acceptance.

We are literally down to the wire--this week school ends and the movers come, next week we close on our house (co-incidentally on the same date we closed when we purchased it, June 2nd), I finish at work and we leave Taos.  We found homes said goodbyes and thanks to our cats.  Our 13 year old dog goes to an adorable young potter tomorrow.  We said goodbye to our scout troop and they even said thanks and good luck. And over the months we've said goodbye to so much stuff.  And I've been pleasantly surprised at the joy I feel.  It's great to see the things you have loved go on to be loved and appreciated by someone else.  It's extremely gratifying.

Last night we went to dinner and saw our boys's violin teacher perform traditional Northern New Mexico songs at a local restaurant.  She played one especially for us--"Volver,"  which means return.  She sang them traditional Spanish Happy Birthdays (which we are celebrating locally before we go).  She hugged.  And it was so nice.  It was really so nice to have closure, to have someone love you and let you go.  In these months and especially over the past couple of weeks I've been able to say goodbye to people I don't know well, to patients, to people I've sold my stuff to.  And it's all good.  They aren't trying to stop me, they aren't resentful.  They think it's great.

I finally allowed my best friend here to plan a final going away party.  I told her I didn't want one...she said I had to...then she left me alone...then I sat on it for months and then I decided it would be okay.  I've had parties for each of my boys to celebrate early birthdays and good byes.  Funny that I knew they needed it before I knew I needed it.  In making sure that they learned how to let go--and that is a big thing for a six year old to say goodbye to the only concrete world he's ever known with pets and toys and friends for a place he's never been--I honestly learned it myself.  And thank goodness I've had so many months to process all of the stuff we have, and to process the emotions of leaving.  I needed that time to transition.  And I am so ready to be done--here we go.