Laverne

 

Laverne was born in 1987 and I acquired her on her 30th birthday.  Since that day I had been working on her for quite a while sprucing her up, making some repairs and improvements to get her ready for my retirement.  In the past two years she has sat patiently waiting for me to get back to it after working my way back from my heart attacks and hospitalization in April of 2021.  It took much longer than I was expecting and at one point I was seriously considering having to sell her when my recovery stalled.  I was left tired and much weaker than I've ever been in my life and had concerns that I couldn't handle a motorhome anymore.  I feared I didn't have the strength and fortitude to finish what I had started or even to drive her.  Fortunately, my girl knew better than I (me?) as she sat proudly in my driveway waiting my return.

 

In January of this year I did return.  In the frigid cold I unlocked her door and stepped inside just to say hello and she was very happy to see me.  All of my hopes and dreams from the beginning of owning Laverne and why I purchased her in the first place flooded back to me.  She told me, "Don't give up, you can do this.  You don't need to be scared."  In my defective heart I knew she was right.  I had been allowing fears and doubts to creep in and as a result my confidence in myself and my own abilities had plummeted.

 

I was so close to having her done.  Tires.  That was the last big thing I needed to do and then in the spring, summer and fall of 2021 I was planning to take her on some adventures to sort out anything else that I might need or want to do.  And finish her stripes.  I was two thirds of the way through that project with only the driver's side left to complete.  Sadly, that didn't happen, I couldn't do it.  My cardiologist at the time told me it wasn't possible and instead I did a road trip (should've flown) to Rochester, Minnesota and spent two week sat the Mayo Clinic in October of 2021.  It was a grueling trip and I knew on my way back home that I needed to make some major changes in my life.  I began to get myself ready and on April 1, 2022 (April Fool's Day - seemed appropriate) I retired.

 

Initially, I spent the first six weeks of retirement just trying to settle down and get rested.  It proved to be rather difficult as I just could not seem to settle in.  In fact, I still struggle with it.  Then my youngest child graduated high school and within a couple of months she moved out on her own, however she didn't exactly do it in the nicest possible way, while my oldest left to New York for graduate school, also not in the nicest possible way.  Let's just say sometimes our children don't always assert their adultness with kindness.  At the same time I lost my best friend to ovarian cancer.  It was a hell of a couple of weeks, let me tell you.  I was pretty much shattered.

 

In my usual fashion I harbored all of the blame for this new situation with my children.  I always harbor the blame whenever things go wrong.  With any situation I always assume I did something to cause it and then I try to fix it, not understanding why I can't seem to make it better.  I've always been this way.  But, at the same time all of this was happening I was actually a month in with a new therapist (thank you Mayo Clinic for this recommendation) to sort out a lot of what I'd already been through.  Well, let me tell you, in the past eight months I've learned a lot.  About myself and about my children, my family and even my friends and past coworkers.  I've finally learned to accept that other people's actions and decisions are theirs and not my responsibility and I've finally learned to stop taking the blame for everything that goes wrong in life.

 

Life has taken some interesting twists and turns of late.  Some I was expecting, but some have taken me by complete surprise.  I do know, beyond all doubt, I am a good person, a hard worker, kind and generous, a great mom and an awesome friend.  I possess a great deal of integrity and high ethical standards.  I know I have worked really hard and done everything I could throughout my life to create the best possible outcome, whatever the situation might be, and I did a solid job raising my children with love and all they ever needed, plus many, many options to fulfill their greatest desires.  I feel really good about that and I hold my head up high.

 

So what does all of this have to do with Laverne?  Everything.  You see, I was seriously contemplating that I might need to sell her and let someone else enjoy her.  I had been considering it for quite awhile by that time.  Over Christmas my BFF said he didn't think I should sell her, but I had some doubts that I could do it, the traveling that is.  But then something changed inside of me.  Because on a cold day in January I realized something.  The time has come to get back to why I bought her in the first place.  I have always had a dream to load up and do some long term travel in an RV and Lord willing, that is what I intend to do.  I am going to finish what I started and I'm going to get on with my life.  

Laverne and I have things to do, places to go and people to see.  It is time for me to have the life in retirement I had always planned for myself.  It is time that I not be controlled by fear or by other people's actions.  It is time to regain that confidence I used to have, once upon a time, and get on with it.  It is my turn now, it is my life and I'm moving forward.  I'm ready to make it happen.  I'm ready to hit the road!