My current husband said, “This is one of the last times I’ll drive here, after four years.” He guided the car into the high school parking lot.

“This is one of the last times I’ll turn into this parking lot since I was…21 years old,” I said.

I’m 48 years old, currently.

Those words took my breath away.

Sometimes you don’t know the meaning of something until you say it out loud, and the words have a witness.

My First Husband

My first husband took this band director job in September 1996. Fresh out of college. All of 23 years old.

In the 1900 and 90s, education funding was precarious, especially for the arts. Teaching positions were difficult to come by. We had fully expected to have to move somewhere for him to gain experience, and then hopefully move back.

But he got the job, so we moved from Warner Pacific College to Milwaukie, a distance of about 7 miles away.

I remember that first home football game. Crisp evening September air, sassy pep band tunes where it’s clear when to yell, “HEY!” The surreal feeling of being only a few years older than the students, and both of us feeling nervous. The green and gold colors, which were the same colors as Timberline High School in Lacey, where he and I met when I was 14 turning 15.

Against all odds (seriously, his interview was quite hilarious, I think it was his first one for a teaching job, but he was – and is – talented and well-recommended), he got this teaching job that moved our lives forward in a specific direction.

The “Good” Wife & Mom

While we disagree on many things, he and I have always agreed on investing in community. I became Band Wife, and then with our kids, Band Mom. A changing list of band kids babysat our children as they grew from babies into toddlers and school age.

We bought a house in the district boundaries, and determined that our kids would go to high school where he taught music and – hopefully – be in the band program (I mean, did they really have a choice? By the time each kid was three, they could identify jazz musicians from grocery store muzak). I got a teaching job in the district; in fact, the same elementary school that my kids went to.

I thought I would be married, have kids, and teach for 30 years and then we’d retire, bing bang boom easy peasy lemon squeezy. We often talked about him doing this job until Youngest was done with high school and then what – who knows???

(I was playing a role – doing what I thought I was “supposed” to do according to society and the church and my trauma background. Be quiet. Be small. Don’t rock the boat. You don’t have needs.)

And for awhile, this worked.

And then I started to heal.

This Job Took Its Toll

I dutifully went to most concerts, even when the kids were little. There were years of these junior high and high school band concerts, summer lessons in our daylight basement, fundraisers on fundraisers, Disneyland trips every other year, parades, bus trips, workshops, contests, Halloweens, “Best Teacher” Christmas ornaments, staff parties, senior photos of past students, 16 hour workdays…

Also budget worries (personal and professional), fighting, scheduling woes, district changes, job changes, recruiting, conferences, and did I mention fundraisers?

The story underneath this story is that I resented this band directing job as much as I loved him doing what it seemed like he was meant to do. I spent a lot of time alone, for a lotta years. It is an all-consuming career.

My Grief is in Context of This Bigger Story

Last week, I went to my *last* high school band concert of my parenting career (and before). On Friday, I went to the band awards night.

Friday night was when we drove into parking lot and I said, “This is one of the last times I’ll turn into this parking lot since I was…21 years old.”

That provided so much context for the grief I am feeling now, which certainly feels like Empty Nest grief on steroids.

Youngest is graduating almost 30 years to the day that I graduated high school. So yes, it’s his last week-ish of high school band, but it’s also mine.

Full circle.

My grief in context.

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