Turning a new page...an intro
Hello!
Through years of therapy and the messy work of self-awareness, my intuition insisted I live where I could be me. And it wasn’t in Dallas where I was known as someone’s ex-wife, mom, or daughter. Sometime in those twenty-six years, I had let myself fade into the background of others’ lives. Yes, my local friends stood by me through all of it—the laughs, the tears, and the falling apart. Yet deep inside, I knew that to allow the authentic Melora Fern to shine, I needed a new start.
“How does one start again at sixty-two?”
I may not have done it the smoothest way—In October I signed a lease on a downtown Durham apartment then flew back to Dallas to inform my friends, brother, and ninety-year-old dad that I was moving by year-end. Before I knew it, I was driving cross-country, my car loaded with clothes, books, my twenty-year-old Christmas cactus, and my middle daughter. On December 22nd, the movers arrived with my furniture questioning why I chose to move during the holidays. Unpacking and resettling in December, as the pandemic tapered around us, seemed like as good a time as any.
Why? When I got Covid on January 1st, I should have known 2022 was going to be a doozy! It was downhill from there—my mom was admitted to the hospital in February and died by March. My divorce was final in April then a family blowup led me to a residential mental health clinic in May. After a couple of months of intense therapy and progressive self-reflection, I knew I needed changes—starting with a radical change in place.
Where? Several people in my writer’s critique group, who had become intimate “Zoom” friends during the pandemic, lived in the Piedmont of North Carolina. When I was asked to house/cat sit for a month, I scoped out the Durham/Chapel Hill/Raleigh (the Triangle) area. Within days, I was enchanted with the arts progressive towns, the miles of hiking trails, and the genuine, welcoming people. My three adult children were figuring out their own lives in San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago. The last thing they needed was a vulnerable mom hovering nearby and I knew myself well enough that I required my own space or I would fall back into the role of “over-involved mom.” My dad encouraged me to do what I thought was best for me. He often told me, “you’re not my wife,” which may have meant I should stop nagging him but I took it as license to move. So, I did.
Looking out at all my boxes to unpack…
On December 24, 2022, I found myself sitting alone in my new apartment, surrounded by unpacked boxes instead of family and tinsel, so I had a good cry. What the hell had I done? Later, after decorating using the few favorites I had unpacked, I curled up on my well-loved couch with a St. George’s Spiced Pear Gin Martini. No one was knocking on my apartment door to invite me to be their friend—I had to get out of my comfort zone and actively put myself into my new community. I needed to own my choices and take charge of my “new” life. I toasted my decorative Holiday Birds and started a new list in my journal: How to start over.
Ringing in the holidays with my fire, my birds, and my drink
So, that’s what I plan to share in my “Turning a New Page” section of my blogs and social media—the various ways I’ve learned to purposefully make new friends, explore a new place, and maintain real happiness. I plan to share my successes and mishaps with you and I hope you’ll share what you’ve learned with me too. As I’ve discovered after two years of purposefully living, we all need a community to survive. I hope others who are debating what to do next, or who have already taken that audacious leap will get ideas from my blogs or at the very least we’ll be able to lift each other up!
Have you recently “turned a new page” in your life? Please share in the comments below.
Stay curious and keep laughing,
~Melora Fern
