Pearls of Wisdom and Foolish Mutterings

Out With the Old, In With the New

Yay, Me!!!  Yesterday I stuck my nose to the grindstone and managed to get all the papers needed to close out my dad's estate scanned into PDF files which I will be emailing to my attorney this morning so that he can prepare the final accounting to send to the judge for approval. THANK GOD.

I have threatened everyone I know within an inch of their lives should they have any inclination toward naming me as the executor of their will - and really, when you think about that statement, it is totally ludicrous, since they wouldn't be around for me to exact my revenge anyway. But I think, I hope, I pray that everyone gets the message and will spare me having to go through this horrendous fate ever again.

Of course, this experience was made much, much worse by all of the extraneous occurrences that were an off-shoot of the whole thing. I remember the beginning of the whole ordeal when we discovered that there was no will (no will that could be located is a more accurate description, since I know my dad had one, but that's a whole other story.) At the time, we were all still playing nice. By we, I mean me, my brother and my dad's widow - AKA The Black Widow of Andrews. Hubby came home from work telling me about someone he works with who had just been through four years of hell dealing with the probate of a family member. I told him, "Oh I just can't see that happening to us." Famous last words.

So, here we are, four years down the road, at the end of a bitter, bitter all-out war. The fallout from said war was unimaginable. I've talked about it far too many times to go over it again here; suffice to say I never would have believed it if I hadn't lived it. Fortunately, I think I have regained most of my sanity, even to the point of writing a fiction book and using that experience, that town and those involved as fodder for the novel. It's much more believable as fiction, anyway!

I'm a much different person than I was four years ago and that's not all bad. It would appear "that which doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger" is a statement with more truth in it than I really like to think about. But I definitely am stronger and smarter. I learned some things I would rather not have learned. I had experiences that I could have done without. I kicked, I screamed, I railed at injustices, but ultimately, I did come out on the other side of that long, dark, scary tunnel intact. I even gained some important things in the process.

I quit my job because I couldn't handle it and the nightmare of the probate at the same time. I began writing as a way to keep my sanity and out of the ashes of despair, I emerged a writer. Would I have discovered this passion of mine had this not happened? I don't know. I'm just grateful that I did. I found friendships I treasure that I would never have known if I hadn't been searching for a place to hone my new-found talent. My life has been enriched immeasurably by the friends I have made here. And I have to ask myself, would I have found this place, these friends, had it not been for the series of events set in motion by my father's death and the subsequent nightmare of probating his estate?

I am happy that I'm not the person I was four years ago. I'm happy that this "trial by fire" has brought me to this place in my life. It's a comfortable place. I found my faith again, I found friends who renewed my faith in my fellow man, I found good in the world again, when I had convinced myself that it did not exist anymore. Yes, it's time to close out the estate, thereby closing that chapter in my life - that life-changing chapter. And it's time to take the first step into the newest chapter of my life. I'm ready.