Sterling Creek

I went back to Sterling Creek after being gone for over a year.  It was the neighbor's annual party, and I was invited.  It has been over 2 years since I've been back to Sterling Creek.

At this party I would see neighbors from Sterling Creek and the Applegate.  People who have children the same age as mine and who went to Ruch School and South Medford High School.  A year ago I just could not face it and the memories associated with the party.  The pain of children who don't talk to me and a failed marriage.  There are too many memories in the evergreen and deciduous trees that stud the mountains surrounding 5151 Sterling Creek Road.

Of dogs and cats long dead that hiked with me and toddlers up through the sage bushes and fir and pine trees.  Of the pussy willow in February, the morels amidst the oak and manzanita savannah, the elderberries in July, with the red-headed woodpecker heckling the tree, and dry pine needles and scarlet poison oak in August.  Boys laughing at grasshoppers pinging in a coffee can.  Alligator  and blue belly lizards in grubby little hands showing them off too me.  Of Johan proudly sharing a garter snake with me in the house.  ( I screamed and said don't you ever do that to me again!) Wet shoes and shorts from catching tadpoles in the neighbor's pond and being amazed at the voracious appetite of the dragon fly nymphs that ate the tadpoles. Then there were ant lions, preying mantis, the squirrels that big kitty caught and ate, gophers the dogs could never catch, bobcats in the chicken coop, and mean roosters attacking little boys.  Baby bunnies, and little pigs fed by little boy's hands.

This year I decided to see what feelings would happen with the visit to the party.  Would it be like the tongue anxiously feeling the hole where a tooth used to be ? Or would it just be a passing thought and an

"Oh well...  this is really over."

Maybe a sniff and a regret?  A bit of bitterness?

I was welcomed with open arms by neighbors and friends.  People talked to me.  Some lessor known neighbors never even knew I had moved or split up from Pat.  No one had met the person who bought the place.  They all told me the house was for sale again.  That got me more than anything.

All in all, I felt like I was still a part of the neighborhood and still friends.  It was good to reconnect with the people that had been so much a part of my life.  The worst was always having to answer the questions about how the boys were doing.  I would have to admit that only Johan was talking to me.  I can't even begin to explain to them I don't understand why they won't talk to me.  Then to listen to their astonishment that the divorce is still not final and their anger that I have to pay spousal support.  I am surprised at how much they care and why should I feel like people don't  care for me?  Is that a legacy from my failed marriage?

One wise person told me tonight it was not anything I did to one of the boys.  Why was it my fault?  It is their problem and not something I caused.  It still doesn't stop the hurt.

As I left the party I had invitations to other social events and lots of hugs.  I drove by the old place to see if there really was a "For Sale" sign.  I slowed way down, and almost caught myself stopping to get the mail!  I did not see the sign, but I saw the house I called home for so long.  It tugged I have to admit.

I took the bumpy road home.  The road we took the boys home on so many times after trips to town. I stuck my tongue down that hole in my mouth to feel all the missing parts of the tooth.  I felt all of the above.  Yes, I have moved on in my life.  Yes I do miss being a part of the Sterling Creek community.  Yes, I do like living in a town now.  I miss being a mom and a wife, but I also love being my own person, independent, self reliant, attractive, and a person with very many good friends.

So time does heal.  Am I healed yet?  No.  I am in progress though...