40. One Girl. One Journey – Waiting…

33 Comments / BLOG / By Carolyn McCormack

January, February and March were anxiety ridden, emotional months. I spent my time with family, I put my stuff that I wanted to keep in storage – some at my brothers shop, some in the basement of my sisters store, some at my daughters… I packed and repacked my 2 huge suitcases. I made arrangements to be able to bring my cat… got her shots, bought enough food for her until I could find a place with cat food. I had always fed her the healthiest organic food. Would I find it there? I spent alot of time watching her. On the back of the couch. Always regal. Always serene – in control. I often wondered what she was thinking… was she scared? Did she wonder what as going on? Whatever she was feeling, she didn´t show it on the outside. On the outside, she was always in control. I wished I was like her. I was going to be staying in a little fishing village and I didn´t know whether it had grocery stores or anything. I had been there once on vacation and really liked it but didn´t pay much attention to necessities. A friend of mine owned a place there and I was renting from her indefinitely. Looking across the road at the home I used to live in, I could barely see the road there was so much snow. The snow banks were higher than my window. I´d never seen so much snow in years! So much has changed since those childhood years.

Each night was anxiety ridden. I didn´t know anything for certain. I didn´t know if I was doing the right thing – I know my family didn´t understand what I was doing – I didn´t know what I was doing. I didn´t know Spanish. I wouldn´t have a car, how would I get places? I didn´t even have a job. Would my money last? Could I work there? Could I do hair there? Maybe that´s how I could survive there. Some nights I couldn´t sleep. I would just stare out the window looking across the road… remembering Moms cooking, Dad playing the fiddle or guitar, all of his brothers coming up – us dancing in the livingroom – like I told you in the beginning of these blogs… Music music music. Everything was music. You know, I didn´t find out until a couple of years ago that my Mom wanted to be a dancer. She said when she was 17, her sister lived in Sudbury. She said she hated school and went up there to audition for a dance school. They told her she was too young – she had to be 18. She went back home, met my Dad and got married. I never knew that. I remember Dad taking us for sleigh rides behind our horse Princess… snow just flying and whirling behind us, like white smoke. We´d go back and forth on the windy road in front of our house. Mom picking berries in our back yard… making jam. Making bread, canned peaches, pickles, beets. Dad renovated the whole farmhouse, painted it, made a picket fence, made picnics tables. He actually had his own little lumber company, until someone ordered lumber, had Dad delivered it and then didn´t make the payments. So he had to go back to work at the lumber company he used to work at. Maybe if those people had paid their bill, Dad would still be here and our lives would have been so different. So much has changed. What happened to my dreams?