FORTY YEARS IN THE DESERT

 

©CherieElainePortraitBoutique2021

What do you want to talk about? Your summer? Was it everything you wanted it to be? 

How about we talk about losing a parent?

Or moving to a different state? 

Or making a career change?

Or major surgery?

Or leaving behind grandkids and kids for an aging parent?

Or wandering 40 years in the desert?

Or???????

©CherieElainePortraitBoutique2021

Let's start with losing a parent. For a long time I've considered myself so fortunate that I still had both parents when so many of my friends had lost both of theirs. Even typing the words, the reality seems unreal. And sad. It makes me sad. 

Just a month and a few days before Dad died, I had major surgery. Not your typical fix-the-rotator-cuff type surgery, but let's fill up that right arm and shoulder with armor type surgery. I feel like it will NEVER heal. It's better than July 1, the day after surgery, but a little less good than June 29th. I'm sick of pain and limited movement. And I live with those two symptoms EVERY day in my body, but this? This is different! Just a few more months they say. 

Dad had been sick on and off for a very long time. I made numerous trips here to Lander to be with my folks when they needed me, to visit my sister because I needed her. One time a few years ago, I moved here for a short period. But this time, only four weeks after surgery, I came to my senses and realized that I was going to be needed permanently.

It hurts like hades. Dad died. Mom retired (she is actually really struggling to do so). I was still recovering but there was NO WAY I wasn't going to hug my dad for the last time, or leave my mom to try to work at a job that she was completely distracted from. 

For the record: Choosing between young family and old family is a really tough decision. 

But, I moved here. 

©CherieElainePortraitBoutique2021

Wyoming, small town living, with deer as neighbors and backroads instead of highways. I LOVE IT HERE. 

I came home. 

But moving, no matter how good, is still moving. 

And I started a new job. Not a career change necessarily, as being a professional photographer is still what I do first, but I need consistent income, and taking over as manager for a senior living apartment complex provides that. I stepped in and took over for my mom and dad. 

Do you know the history of Moses and leading the Israelites though the desert for 40 years and wandering and wandering and wandering.....until they finally reached their promised land? 

If I look at my life, and the number of times I've shaken my fist at God, or cried in a very unladylike loud voice, or felt so lost, it has the impression of wandering. I've moved more than most people.  I've been a gypsy bohemian for the last 40 years, wondering and wandering, never quite settled. 

So many years I have wondered where I belong, shed daily tears over my non-life that was actually quite a cool life that few live, but wanted a settling, wanted to belong somewhere. I've had awesome roommate experiences and lived with my kids (isn't that what OLD people do?) and even when I had a great little basement apartment, I didn't have a kitchen and it was in someone else's house. 

What were you doing 40 years ago? I was married. I was too young and too weak to do differently. Ugh and more ugh, but done and done. And done again. I tried three times. Out of my wandering years I had three very different husbands (none of them nice), raised six kids (three that I birthed), moved at least 20 times, and downsized by half for each of those moves. I wandered. And wandered. And wandered. 

©CherieElainePortraitBoutique2021

Forty years. And now, after all this time, I am settled. This is my promised land. I bought furniture. I have my own home with a real kitchen. I have a job that gives me time to do photography, too. 

In four more days, I can pick up my violin again. I've been playing my guitar. I've gone exploring once. Took beautiful autumn pictures. I made friends with the wildlife here. I live in a small town. In the mountains. In Wyoming. 

When things are beyond your control, or even downright out of control, God has a plan for it. It might take 40 years. It did for me. But He got me through every obstacle to bring me to this place. When it could have been so awful. 

Life is full of really hard choices. It took being down and having to surrender to fall into where God had planned for me from the beginning. 

Sometimes I'm really sad. But I'm sad here. 

I'm in my promised land. I am home. 

©CherieElainePortraitBoutique2021

©CherieElainePortraitBoutique2021