Morphing Existence

Where does one begin to describe the intimate changes that time and path bring together to form a new existence?

My life virtually started over a few years ago with the passing of my spouse and friend. I immediately moved out of our bedroom into a small neighboring space to help me not think about our past together and the final moments experienced in that room.

Next, I made some decisions of my intention to live the rest of my days as a single person and to never seek a close relationship again. I even decided to sell the house and go traveling in a motorhome. I hoped that I could stay out there long enough that when my time to pass came it would be someone finding me already deceased in the vehicle with written instructions of what to do get me back to the family and distributed of my property among my living children. There was a kind of comfort in that.

What I overlooked was my personality and extrovert need to have people I know around me, at least infrequently. This would be the beginning of a different pathway entirely than I expected.

Even before my wife passed, I had been pursuing hobbies to fill my caregiving hours since retiring. I had long been in amateur radio, but that had been set aside due to interfering with her TV programs and telephone.

The real shocker came when a fellow at work who had noticed my interest in Star Wars from wallpaper images on my work computer. He asked if I had been aware that there was a big convention to happen in Los Angeles soon. I immediately got online to investigate. That was when I decided to join in vicariously with the activities by learning how to create a Jedi costume worthy of being part of the fantasy of George Lucas' wonderful film fantasy world.

Never even asking whether I could justify the cost of making a convincing costume or how I would find opportunity to wear it, I picked up all the info I could search out on the Internet. That search brought me in contact with various international clubs of people who do the same thing.

I set about using the few sewing skills I had acquired fixing the children's clothes by getting fabric and deciphering patterns for tunics and robes, as well as belts, food pellet containers, supply packs and lightsabre building instructions. It filled up my empty moments while my wife lay in bed handmaking crocheted baby blankets for donations through the church.

By the time the convention rolled around, I looked like any chorus actor up on the screen. I fully intended to sit in costume in front of the computer and watch the on-goings at the Celebration a thousand miles away. However, my search for patterns and help had resulted in me taking pictures and being approved as a member of the Rebel Legion costuming club online. Also, since the ladies in the fabric store had asked me to come in costumed when it was completed, I now had decided that I would fully invest in getting involved doing events with the local unit called Alpha Base in the Western Washington area.

Club activities generated lots of social involvement and pride in costumes well done. I tried to involve my wife, but she was too uncomfortable to stay long at events and had difficulty relating to all the "interesting" people of the club.

While overseeing a table at a local convention one season, I met a finely dressed Jedi lady visitor with a padawan friend who were willing to let me blowviate while we stood in line one evening for the costume judging show. The lady went by the moniker of Hendel d'Bu. I felt very comfortable from the first time we were all together and looked forward to their company at events in coming seasons.

My wife was faced with dialysis and a cancer that spelled the end within a fairly short period in the final weeks in 2011. I had pulled back from club activities to give more immediate care which only expanded when hospice came along. Not long after she was gone, I realized that what I really wanted was companionship. So at the first opportunity, I asked if the girls might allow me to join them as "one of the girls", since we shared so much interest in the mythos of Star Wars. This definitely helped the sting of now being without a mate and friend.

Getting to know my new friends revealed not only their interest in costuming, but the nature of their sad lives as spouses in badly broken marriage relationships. They gladly let me join in their travels and discussions. Little did I suspect that I was developing feelings for Hendel that would eventually go beyond friendly association.

Let me say, to shorten this long epistle, that I ultimately made the decision to prepare a living situation that the girls could escape to if they chose to get out of their contracts. Without resources I knew they would have to endure yet years of servitude. I had some money from my father and mother's recent demise that might support us all for a time to we could get reestablished in life, so I picked out a rental house nearby Hendel's home. It was the kind of risk I would never before have taken, so I knew something had changed for how I would live the rest of my life. I would never again be too cautious to find deeper happiness than living had produced in forty-two years of a quiet, prescribed marriage.