Dear Love and Laundry Readers,
Most of you know my dog, Star. And like many dogs, Star is unsettled by suitcases. She gets a worried expression on her little face the moment the Samsonites emerge from the closet where they live in times of peace and tranquility.
For Star, suitcases are harbingers of doom, disruption and a stint with the dogsitter, Miss Michelle, and her energetic pack of Yorkies.
Star doesn’t like change because her life is perfect as is. No amendments, additions or substitutions are necessary to make it better. And like Star, my aversion to change is in direct proportion to the quality of the status quo. If things are fine, or even just mostly okay, then I want them to stay mostly okay forever.
Because as we all know, change is hard. If Star could talk with words, instead of just her eyes, she would actually say something stronger. Star would say that change is bad.
And lately, I agree with her.
At the end of August we flew to Milwaukee to drop our second child off for his first year of college. His older brother left for college a few days earlier. Now there’s just one child left at the Gunderson family dinner table, and it’s strangely quiet after a summer with all three kids at home.
I do realize this is normal. All my mom friends of a certain age are doing the same thing right now. Some of them just dropped their last child at college and are making that big transition to the Empty Nest.
And I see other moms too, the young ones, way back at the starting line, sending their first child off to kindergarten.
Change is the only constant, and we know that. So if change is happening all the time, why is it so hard?
I blame the Dreaded Hallway.
Life is like a mansion with many rooms (the Bible mentions something similar about heaven). Some of these rooms are cramped and drafty and we can’t wait to get out of them. And some of these rooms are beautiful with big windows and comfortable velvet couches and dogs sleeping by the fire.
But we can’t stay in the same room forever. Eventually we have to leave. I imagine this news being delivered with a soft knock on a heavy wooden door, followed by the entrance of an old man with kind eyes. He’s sort of a combination of C.S. Lewis, Dumbledore, Abraham Lincoln and Mr. Rogers. He’s wise and gentle, but also firm.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he says in a British accent, (because he’s British, for reasons I can’t fully explain). “But it’s time for you to leave this room now.”
“But I don’t want to leave!” I say indignantly from the comfort of my velvet couch. “I finally have it fixed up just the way I like it. All my favorite people are here.”
“I know that you’ve grown very comfortable in this room, but you’ve been here for a long while now, and it’s time to move on.”
“But where am I going?”
“We aren’t really sure yet. You’ll have to wait in the hallway.”
“But I hate the hallway!” I stomp my foot like Scarlett O’Hara and he gives me a stern look over his half-rimmed spectacles.
“No one likes the hallway,” he admits. “But you must go through the hallway to enter the next room.”
“But the hallway has that terrible damp fog, and you can’t see what’s ahead of you,” I argue. “And it’s dimly lit, and we’re always fumbling around, trying to find the knob to get into the next room. And some people get lost and they end up wandering around out there for ages.”
And then I add with a sniff. “It’s all very poorly managed, in my opinion. You’d think they’d at least invest in proper signage.”
“You do have a choice,” Mr. Rogers/C.S. Lewis/Dumbledore/Abraham Lincoln Man points out. “You could stay in this room past your time, if that’s what you really want. You can refuse to move on.”
I regard him with suspicion. “What happens if I don’t leave?”
He shrugs. “In the short term, absolutely nothing.”
“What do you mean, absolutely nothing?”
“Nothing will change. Nothing will get better. Or worse. Everything will stay exactly as it is now. But it will be much harder to find the next room when you are eventually forced to leave.”
“Are the other rooms better?”
“The other rooms are different. Some might seem better and some worse. But you can only find out by leaving this room and stumbling around in the hallway until you find the next one.”
In the end I roll my eyes, drag my feet and leave my comfortable room with the fireplace and the velvet couch. And I enter the Dreaded Hallway.
The Dreaded Hallway is the place between places. It’s where we wait for biopsy results or news from a job interview. It’s the place we go after our children leave for college or our best friend moves away or when someone we love very much dies and leaves us all alone.
It’s the place we inhabit after our first child is born and we become parents, forever disrupting our old life by bringing a new life into the world. It’s where we go during the first weeks of retirement from a job that gave our lives meaning and purpose. It’s where we go after we move or graduate or get fired or married or divorced or start a new job. It’s place we inhabit after a good change, or a bad change, or any change at all.
It’s the place where we mourn our old life while waiting for the new one to begin.
We don’t know what we’ll find in the next room. Maybe the furniture is comfortable but the air conditioning is weak. Maybe the view is wonderful but the kitchen is tiny. Sometimes it’s better. Sometimes it’s worse. And sometimes, it’s just different.
What matters is having the courage to leave the old room behind, even if we loved it, sometimes especially if we loved it, and move into the hallway, groping in the darkness, searching for the next phase, the new life.
I spent most of the summer in the Dreaded Hallway, bursting into tears at odd moments, cherishing ridiculous things, like the sound of my children bickering or playing ping pong in the basement.
But after we dropped my sons at college, I found the knob, pushed the door open and entered a different place.
Here’s what I know so far about my new room. The grocery bill is much smaller here. Parmesan cheese and dirty socks no longer festoon my kitchen. It’s much cleaner. And it’s a lot quieter with only one child in the house.
In this new room, I might have more time to write and walk and think. I might even exercise.
It’s not better. It’s not worse. It’s just different. And I hope there are other new rooms ahead, too.
But that also means I have a few more stumbles up and down the Dreaded Hallway, groping in the fog, searching for whatever comes next.
And I’m okay with that. Mostly.
Like my dog, I will always get a little nervous when the metaphorical suitcases come out of the closet. But I do have faith that what ever lies ahead is good, just in a completely different way.
There are a lot of people roaming the hallway this time of year. September is like that. And if you’re one of them, I wish you courage and a robust sense of humor as you find your way to a new room with big windows and a velvet couch. Because the room is there. Sometimes it just takes a while to find it.
All my love,
Christine
Housekeeping Items
So many of you responded with ‘Yes, please!’ when I asked if you’d like to win a signed copy of Behind White Picket Fences AND a signed copy of my friend Aggie Blum Thompson’s new book, The Neighbors Are Watching, so I promise we will do another give away as soon as I replenish my supply of books :-)
Until then, these are the four names I drew from the Ceremonial Viking Helmet of Free Literature:
Stephanie C.
Jennifer C.
Janelle G.
Karen J.
Congratulations, lovely winners!!! Watch for an email from me asking for your physical address so I can send your books in the mail. And know that it really is me, and not a Russian hacker.
Until next month...
Christine (and Star)
“It instantly had me hooked - I started reading the book but couldn’t put it down so quickly switched to the audio book so I could keep listening while I went about my day. It was a deeply entertaining story that made me laugh out loud while filling my heart at the same time.”
Happy Reviewer
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“This fast and funny page turner is so chock full of wisdom, twists and thrills it’s a joy ride - and a heartwarming tale about the power of family, friendship and community, just wonderful!”
Happy Reviewer
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“A very clever & exciting read.”
Happy Reader
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
So true! Adjoining rooms would be so much easier :-) And I sometimes think we wander in the hallway between published and unpublished so we can cheer on our fellow writers as they search for their own room :-)
This is great extended metaphor, and one I won’t soon forget. Many would prefer adjoining rooms so they can skip the hallway altogether, but its discomfort seems important to our overall wellbeing.
Also, Christine, your remarks at the WFWA awards was just wonderful. Thanks for setting the perfect tone!