Transitions

The story that I am going to tell you is true. All of the facts have been greatly altered as a protective measure. 

I met my friend Linda when she was an account manager at a market research company that I worked at. She was the life of the party, even at work. She was the person who brought everyone together. I was married at the time, my daughter was a toddler, my boys pre-teens. She was Auntie Lin to them. 

An avid crafter, there wasn't much in the home-made category that she couldn't do. I was into counted cross-stitch and she greatly encouraged me. Under her tutelage, I got pretty good at it. She had graduated from an Appalachian college that her mother was an alumni of that was founded to continue the arts and crafts native to the area. But she said that she didn't fit in with the crowd there. So after graduation she made her living in corporate America instead. 

I lost touch with her after I stopped working for the company, and I missed her for many years. Then in 2014 I re-taught myself to knit and became enthusiastic about it. Another friend, ardent crafter, from a different job invited me to attend the Southeastern Area Fiber Festival with her. I jumped on the chance to visit. But my friend had other friends there and I was pretty much on my own. While visiting the vendors I was shocked to find Linda in one of the booths. She had moved on from the company we had both worked at. She was living in a small town in middle Tennessee where she and her partner had a craft store. I was so happy to have found her, I shamelessly abandoned the friend that I went to the festival with and spent my time with Linda. 

After that, we didn't lose each other again. She would get in touch with me anytime she was in Atlanta, which was often. And I was involved in a clinical trial that had me at Vanderbilt in Nashville every six months. By 2016, there was Skype and Facetime, long distance friendships weren't pen pals anymore. 

In 2018 I was talking with her a few times a week. Her relationship with her partner had soured, and she confided in me that she had never felt comfortable in the crafting community. She wasn't a girly-girl. She, in her late 50's was covered in tattoos and had purple dreads. She said that she always felt like she was on the outside, even at her own events, even in her own store. By that time, they were doing a bi-monthly pod-cast that had gotten a lot of notoriety. Her partner was pressuring her to do a lot of symposiums aat some of the larger festivals. And while it wasn't outside of her element, it came with a lot of criticism about her lifestyle and the way she looked and behaved. It was tearing away at her.  

At the end of the year Linda got some really bad news. Her father had a heart attack that left him an invalid. A few weeks later her mother was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, stage 4, it was already in her lungs and liver when they caught it. Linda was their only child, and they had no other family. So she sold her share of the craft shop to her partner and moved to Nova Scotia to care for them. While she was there she was tested and found to have the BRCA1 gene, and stage one cancer in her right breast. She was recovering from her surgeries and treatment when both of her parents died within a week of each other. By that time it was the end of 2019 and in a few short weeks the world, with the Canadian border shut down for Covid. 

We hadn't talked so much while she was taking care of her parents. There were Facetimes a couple of times over those months, but she was busy. And I was all up in my problems having retired and moved to Seattle. Then on July 24, 2021 I go a call from Linda. Jason was on the screen and he had shaved his head. He told me that from now on, Linda was gone and that he was Jason now. 

I can't say that I was shocked. I was surprised, but I could see how it could happen. I tried to be positive and reassuring. I told him that in my opinion that it wasn't up to me to tell him who he was. I was his prerogative to tell the world that. But still, I kept asking him if he was sure. 

When we hung up, I was sure that he'd never call me again. I was very wrong. If anything, even considering the fact that we live in different countries, our friendship has grown. I grieved for Linda, as if she had died, and I have told Jason that. He is a very different person than she was. He doesn't sew anymore. He doesn't go to fiber festivals. The last quilt that he made was for his mother right before she died. 

He is living in a different part of Canada now. He has a new partner who is somewhat younger than him. The partner teaches mathematics and coaches soccer. I don't think that he has come out to his community yet. They have a large house in a different town that Jason is renovating. Instead of sewing, he's hanging drywall and painting. When we talk he takes me on tours of the rooms he has finished. They also have two bungalows on the property. He says that he's going to open a commune for Gilead (U.S,) refugees. He's joking of course, but they do plan on a posh long term AirB&B type rental situation. I told him that what he was describing was a boarding house. 

He called me last night. We talked about the move I will be making soon. And the wall in me broke. I try to be upbeat and positive about the situation with everyone. But it is hard. I feel like since I retired in 2018 I have been pushed out of every place, like I don't belong there.  It's hard to be hopeful. It's awful to contemplate starting over, and building a community one more time. It's hard to be hopeful that it won't be taken away from me too. I told him how the situation here is deteriorating. My neighbors are angry and depressed. I told them that they have given up any pretense of caring for this place. They drop their trash on the ground and leave it where it lands. They are no longer trying to be considerate of each other. They bass blast from their cars at three in the morning. Why be clean and quiet and considerate when you are going to be forced to leave anyway? 

I told him about the back to back illnesses that I have had recently, the pinched nerve followed by the phlebitis and now the gastro issues with allergies and arthritis kicking in too. He understands. He says that when your mind and spirit are not well, then your body follows suit. That is why I have been so sick lately. It was where he was at back in 2018. I think he's right. 

So, and he was not joking, he has invited me to Canada. He says that I can stay in one of the bung-a-lows and help him fix it up. He says that Canada is accepting expatriates from the US to piss of the orange one. But I doubt that I fit the demographic that Canada is looking for. I am sure they are looking for doctors and lawyers and such. It just seems another place to be pushed out of when my Visa is up. And it is so far away from my children, and across a boarder. I just can't. Still, it's enticing.