The End of an Era

As I said in my previous post, things were finally starting to fall into place. When I woke up Monday morning, the Porcelain Princess was still my traveling companion, but the plumber was coming to finally get it out of my SUV and install it. My husband was coming home from his male bonding road trip, and my Sensei (who had been on a 3 week long road trip with his new girlfriend), was coming home too. It was a trifecta of good news!

As one of Sensei’s highest ranking students, I ran the noon classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays when he was out of town, and this time was no different. Then I realized he had only texted me once at the beginning of his trip to see how classes were going. That was odd. Typically he would text me multiple times a week.

Maybe he was in a weird head space. I know I was. After training with him for 22 years, it was coming to an end. Sensei was freaking out and having high anxiety about me leaving. And I was freaking out about walking out of the dojo after my last class without having a major meltdown in front of everyone. Spoiler alert: I do not do well dealing with my emotions. Just ask my editor if you don’t belive me.

On this beautiful July morning, as I was getting ready to leave for the dojo I got a text from Aaron, another high ranking student who often covered class. “Can you come in early today? We need to talk.” I replied, “Of course. I’m leaving now. See you soon.”

A sense of dread came over me. “We need to talk” is usually code for “You screwed up, and you need to fix it.” I wondered what I could have done wrong. Forget to lock the dojo? Tick off a parent or a student? Leave a mess in the dojo? Check, check, and check. None of those were even remotely possible. I ran through my check list as I drove, wondering what “we needed to talk” was about.

I figured I would find out soon enough.

To be continued….