Neither of us had so much as set foot in Austin before we pulled into town with a U-haul in mid-2000. We got a crappy apartment and I landed another temp job -- this time in the resource development department at the Red Cross, where I was pretty much guaranteed to perform better than the previous temp -- who had been mysteriously (and quite unexpectedly) taken out of the office by the SWAT team one afternoon. A few days with no sign of law enforcement, and I was hired. Thus began my career in fundraising.
For the next year or so, I learned the ropes in development – grant-writing, special events, schmoozing. Meanwhile, our close friendship (usually a good thing) and mutual stubbornness prevented MDexH and I from noticing the cracks in the foundation of our marriage. So we did what married people do – we bought a house, adopted two dogs, and added a kitten (who I found wounded and scared in the drive-thru of a Jack in the Box and brought home in a French-fry box). The music and culture in Austin was everything we’d heard it would be. Life chugged forward.
Until June of 2001, when a devastating event I’d been semi-anticipating most of my life came to fruition. I went home to Atlanta for a friend’s wedding; and made plans to see both my parents along with some of my lifelong friends at home. We’d arranged to pick up my mom – who’d had chronic physical and mental health issues nearly all my life – for lunch a couple days after the wedding.
As I called her to confirm in the days and hours before we were supposed to meet and continually got the machine, I began to have a sinking feeling that all was not right. We’d had a minor spat on the phone right after I arrived in town, and after years of struggling with her through mental illness and its accompanying behaviors, I was worried. When we arrived to pick her up and she didn’t answer the door, I finally called the police to help us get into her apartment and confirm what I’d feared: after years of suffering, the woman who created and nurtured my life and my brother’s had taken her own.
I won’t dwell on this part of my life for long – it could be a book unto itself, one that I’m not ready to write. But I will say that in the days and months following that horrible moment, I learned the depth and capacity of true friendship. Even though much of it is blurry at best, I remember distinctly that every time there was a decision to be made or pain to be faced, there was always the loving and helpful shoulder of a friend nearby to help hold me up.
There are particular friends and family who held my hand through the funeral arrangements, the funeral itself, and cleaning out Mom’s apartment – I haven’t forgotten how much that meant to me. And however strained our relationship might have been before or since, MDexH stood by me from the moment policemen opened the door with the news, and he quite literally kept me from hitting the floor. People sometimes ask how I manage to stay friends with an ex-husband, and I guess times like that are the answer.
A few months later, my personal grief was compounded by our national tragedy on September 11,2001. Again, I could write for hours about my own personal experience during that time. Instead, I’ll speed things up and just say that some typical career stressors at the Red Cross were compounded in the months that followed. So I left my job in 2002 and did another short stint as a freelancer before realizing that I still didn’t quite have the resources and discipline needed to make that career viable.
I ended up back into the world of development at a private Catholic high school. This put me on a new path in a number of ways: career-wise, I was catapulted into far more responsibility than I’d had in the past; socially, I found a group of colleagues who also became amazing friends; and spiritually, I got exposure to a religious culture with which I’d never been very familiar. Things were going swimmingly in my professional life. But by 2003, the strain in our marriage had become palpable, and was beginning to wear down MDexH and me both. Being really great friends was no longer cutting it for either of us, and we separated.
So in June 2003, I moved into my first apartment EVER that was just mine – no family, no roommates, just me. It was 480 square feet, just two rooms with a motel-style air conditioner cooling both, but it was my own little space and I treasured it. There was something amazing about being alone in an apartment, a thousand miles from my hometown, family and friends – it was a little scary and occasionally lonely, but I had an independence there that still makes me proud today.
I was lucky that summer (and beyond) to have the influence and support of many new close friends, in particular a good friend from the school where I worked. She was a wonderful, independent spirit herself and would’ve been an inspiration to me under any circumstances. As it was, she had learned just months after we met that she had a brain tumor, and was faced with invasive treatments as well as the possibility of her own mortality all at once. Never one to take anything lying down, she was determined to continue living life with gusto, and was constantly calling me to go out and explore new activities with her – from swing dancing to karaoke to late-night bowling.
If I’d had any inclination that I was going to sit home and mope about the divorce, she shattered it by saying “I have a brain tumor – what’s your excuse?” And so I went wherever she wanted me to go, made loads of new friends, and learned a lot about myself in the process.
One summer week she purchased from a garage sale the ugliest crocheted duck I’ve ever seen [I say that as though I’ve seen so many… and some of them tasteful!]. She stopped by my apartment while out for a bike ride, claiming she needed the restroom, and left the hideous little duck on my loofah sponge – quite a surprise for me the next morning. It became a game with a group of us: we would secretly try to pass the duck around from friend to friend by sneaking it into one another’s homes. Since then, I’ve learned that many families have a similar tradition with an old fruitcake or summer sausage. I prefer the duck!
For the next year and a half, I lived a life that was truly my own. I kept in touch with friends from Atlanta, of course, but I had the challenge and excitement of forming new friendships and relationships by myself. Since I had no family nearby, I was responsible for filling my own time, taking care of my own needs. It could be hard sometimes, but it was also thrilling to have so much freedom.
I experimented with online dating a little – actually just long enough that I can relate when people talk about the awkwardness of online dating. I developed a couple of relationships that never really had long-term potential, but I learned something valuable from each. One taught me that even an intelligent, strong, self-aware woman can end up in an unhealthy relationship with someone who is emotionally abusive; and the other helped me to see my own worth more clearly and expect the best from myself. Both prepared me in their own way for what was to come.
As 2004 drew to a close, I realized I was ready for another change. I loved my life in Austin in so many ways, but I began to feel rootless there, and missed my friends and family in Atlanta. When I went home to visit over the winter holidays, I realized it was time to find my way back. An old friend came to the rescue, and helped find me a job with his family’s business; while my best friend and her family opened their home to me (are you picking up on a theme yet?).
So in January 2005, I began taking my leave of the city I’d come to adore and the friends who had made it home for me. In that same month, the increasing hardship of the brain tumor’s effects and dwindling hope for recovery cost my dear friend her independence; and she decided to forgo further treatment and move in with her parents in another state. When I saw her that January, she was having trouble finding words, particularly to express her complex emotions. I knew, though, when she hugged me and handed me that horrible little crocheted duck, that she was saying goodbye. She died peacefully two months later surrounded by her family.
By mid-February, I was on my way to Atlanta: music blaring, hot tears rolling down my face, the crocheted duck in the center console, and Two the cat howling in the passenger seat for the entire 15-hour drive.
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