Point me toward tomorrow

I love reading about pioneering women.  How brave they were to leave all they knew and loved back East and head out into the uncivilized unknown.  They often brought cherished talismans from home:  china, candlesticks, a quilt or two.  Ever-hopeful for a new life, they did the best they could, sometimes creating primitive yet comforting homes to keep their loved ones safe from the brutal elements.  I often think about these strong resourceful women when change is coming in my own life.

I am about to leave a job I've had for twenty years.  I have a mere five days left in an environment that I've hinted at before, has been very grueling and at times cruel.  I'm convinced I have the mentality of someone who is institutionalized and it will take time to change that.  My doctor claims I have saved my own life.  The nature of my work has prevented me from talking about it publically.  But I am leaving now and soon I will be employed in a place that I have no doubt, will be very nice indeed.

My eyes are dry - I know I gave the very best I had and have no regrets.  Well, maybe one - I should have left five years ago.  What is so astonishing to me is that my captors were so surprised.  But I can no longer care any more than they do.  I will be going to a place where respect rules the day - being gun-shy, I have completed my due diligence and my homework. 

The tipping point was a meeting I was called to on a false pretense two weeks before Christmas.  It left me so distraught, my daughter offered to sleep with me so I wouldn't be alone.  That was the night I began to look for a new position.  I lifted my arms up to the heavens above and they were filled.  Fairly quickly too.  I won't be looking back.

Those I am leaving will soon find another victim.  And so, they must...  The other night I dreamed I was riding in the back of a wooden wagon led by three wild horses.  I glanced down at my leg which was clamped tight in a thick iron bear trap.  As the wagon pitched and bumped in the dark, the trap fell away leaving my ankle bruised with a wide crimson welt.  It was tender and it hurt.  But when the wagon stopped, I limped away.  Whole.  And standing.