Five years ago at this hour I was sitting in our van on I-80 with my family, moving in fits and starts in a 120 mile long traffic jam that extended from New Orleans to well past Baton Rouge. We had a bunch of stuff in the car with us - bedding for sleeping in the back, since we had no motel reservations, a TV that ran on the car current and that was turned on to whatever station we could pick up. Of course, we had our cat and all of her paraphernalia. We wouldn't reach the outskirts of Baton Rouge until after eight that night. I now live in a place where this is ancient history, but this anniversary haunts me every year. It was the beginning of many changes that I am still uncertain were for the best. My rational self says it's good to be out of New Orleans - the city has always been a hair short of a total basket case. Crime, which was always terrible, has gotten worse. The economy, never great, is hopeless. Southerners in general and Louisianans in particular have a congenital antipathy toward good governance, so not having all of that is a good thing. But I had a pleasant, untaxing and well paid job where I was well-liked and liked the people I worked with. We had a fabulous house, and ironically, after Katrina, we developed much closer relationships with friends.
Now both of us have to scramble for our living. I daily confront the depth of my ignorance of the changes in my profession - which in some ways is a good thing, but not so great for one's confidence. We have new friends and the neighborhood we live in is glorious. But I miss the continuity, the security, the comfort of not having to worry about having a new career at 60. That road trip that we thought would last three days stretched to 3 months and then nothing was ever the same again.
