Thursday, November 1, 2012

No More Banking For One of Us


Today, I went to a training center downtown to take a class for work on making referrals. Walking down the hall on break with phone in hand, I held down ‘4’ to speed dial my mom’s cell, and I thought of how the speed dial to her work phone would no longer be necessary. I’m so used to her being at that bank that I feel like I’m in shock. She started six years before I was born, the year that "Thriller" came out on the radio and Nancy Reagan dressed as a bag lady to challenge criticism of her expensive outfits. Since I turned seven, Mom’s worked at the same branch, a branch with a tall sloping ceiling and green-cushioned seats. I used to hold myself up and swing between the chairs. Our dachshund once sat under her desk the day after he’d been hit by a car. She’s been at that branch longer than anyone there. I can’t believe that today she doesn’t have keys. Today she couldn’t help Mr. So-and-so with his account even if she really wanted to. I don’t think she wanted to. Blondie heard her scream “Yeah! Freedom!” on her way up from the basement. She didn’t know he was home. 

Today, to me, all of this felt really important. It felt really important that today was November 1, 2012, the first day of Mom's retirement. It felt really important that I was in the training building in the same company for which she'd worked for so many years. It felt really important that I was doing role play, her least favorite activity, and that I could come home to tuna spinach casserole and peach jello. 

On a side note, I start NaNoWriMo today. This’ll be my first go at participating in the online project of writing 50,000 words in November. It must be a new project. I can’t return to something I half-finished in the past. And it has to be fiction. 

I’m going to squeeze in some time for writing between now and 9 o’clock when I’ll watch an old episode of The Vampire Diaries with the retiree. 

Sally's window seat. October 31, 2012.
"I'll make you see
That this is thriller."

1 comment:

  1. 1. Congrats, Sally!
    2. NaNoWriMo! I am so excited for you.
    3. Loved the bits about the 80s.

    ReplyDelete