End of an era

 Another of life’s milestones is approaching at the end of this month.  After slowly moving out for the past two years, while still keeping it as a place to retreat  to for brief moments of solitude and reverie, I am giving up my apartment where I have lived for the past 15 years.  I am living full time now at my mother’s, taking care of her along with two caregivers who come in during the day while I am at work.  At age 88 she no longer can be alone at night, even for a short period of time, so it’s pointless to continue paying for a place that I no longer use.   

It’s been very difficult to take that final step of leaving for good because, as I have written here before, it may be a modest upstairs apartment, but I lived there longer than anywhere else in my 60 years so far on this earth.    Perhaps you long-time readers of my diary recall the times I wrote with great affection about gazing at the big oak tree outside my bedroom window which I observed and chronicled its progression through all four seasons, first as it leafed out joyfully each spring and passed from verdant green abundance in the summers to a long, drawn out withering of leaves as it played its autumn song.   Today, when I was over there cleaning out some closets and throwing away yet more unneeded artifacts of my life, I noticed the bare leaves of that majestic oak outlined against a blue January sky.   Bare also is the smaller oak across the street whose leaves turn a brilliant red each fall.  

I have gone through boxes of memories and carted all that I want to save for now over to the family house downtown that is almost officially my only residence.  I love it here near all the shops, old historic neighborhoods, grand old homes, parks, waterfront and history, but it’s not the same as one’s own place.   Sure, I will in all likelihood be living here on my own at some point int the future, and I am grateful and happy in that secure knowledge in these perilous economic times.  I have already decided that it’s very unlikely I am going to retire early since so much of what I had saved is now gone.   I know a lot of people my age are in the same boat.    Fortunately, I like my job and find a lot of fulfillment in it, so postponing retirement won’t be that difficult.  Still….the freedom of days off when I can sit all morning on the porch lingering over a cup of coffee and endless news and feature stores on my iPad sure is nice.   I luxuriate in those opportunities to have some peace and quiet.   Those interludes would be interrupted only by choice in retirement.

So in just a couple of weeks I will turn in the keys and say goodbye to my "home" and the quiet apartment neighborhood full of trees that I have come to know and love so well.  I won’t be coming in the door at night to plop on my recliner chair and listen to some favorite music by Danny Wright.  I won’t be fixing my late night snacks and settling into computer chats, online journal writing, and visiting Flickr to post my pictures.  I can do all that here, and I do, minus the chats which are a thing of the past;  but I will miss the familiar carpeted floors, the walls full of my photos, and the spare bedroom/study beckoning me to spend some truly quiet time there.   It is such a laid-back  apartment complex.. I really felt at peace there.

Finally, these thoughts.   When I first moved there in 1995, I had endured a long spell of unemployment and depression.  I wasn’t sure if I’d ever find sure footing again and enjoy life and people as I once did.  But thankfully, I miraculously got a job that was perfectly suited to me, where so many had not in the past,  and was able to move into my apartment after only a short search for a place to live.  When I saw it the first time, I knew that was it.

I will have many memories of my quiet, cozy, book-filled apartment, but life is not one continuous flow.   There are numerous turning points, milestones, and changes that I, of all people, should be well familiar with and expect.   But this place I am leaving marked a significant departure — the longest I had lived in a place of my own prior to that was four years.   And that was another idyllic apartment situation surrounded by woods and a creek in a quiet corner of Columbia, S.C.   I have written about it here, too, and I will similarly not let the memories of "my home" in Charleston these past 15 years  fade without recollecting and writing about them from time to time.