Not long ago I was walking on the Ashokan rail trail with a former SUNY New Paltz colleague. We were reminiscing about the old days, and she asked if I remembered a woman who had worked in the English Department with us (I’ll call her Janet). My mind was blank. “No,” I said, “I can’t remember her at all.”

A few days later, while on my usual walk close to home, seemingly in a flash I remembered Janet. In fact, after she left the English Department I visited her in her new position. Suddenly all sorts of memories from that time returned, ones that I choose to avoid. Apparently, my memories of Janet were caught behind the wall I erected to survive a painful period.

I was lucky to have lived a relatively easy life. The only major dramas were self-inflicted, and that when I was a crazy adolescent. My charmed life ended when I left New Paltz in 2007 to become a professor at SUNY Sullivan. My husband was diagnosed with cancer. My mother died suddenly. My father died six months later. My only sibling and I became estranged over a dispute about the estate. And we moved from Saugerties to Sundown.

The move was (and is still) our adventure. The word “adventure” is commonly considered positive, exciting, but this one, linked as it is to a series of losses, was mixed. We left our beautiful home in Saugerties and moved into an abandoned house closer to my job. The house had to be rebuilt from the foundation up. Donald is the brains and brawn behind the renovation — I lack the knowledge, skill, and/or interest. Donald had always claimed that building a new house is much easier than renovating an old one and, as usual, he is right. We are 14 years into the project, and I’m convinced we’ll die on-site. From old age, not a construction accident.

When we purchased the two abandoned houses back in 2008, my parents were alive and totally on board. My father helped Donald in the initial stages of gutting the larger of the two houses with the plan we would all four live there while we rebuilt the smaller house. We were happy to be embarking on the adventure together.

However, life doesn’t always follow our plans. My parents died, and we moved into the house that Donald and Dad had started renovating, which, unfortunately, was not the house that we preferred. Donald says he enjoys the challenge. I appreciate the fact that he is bringing the old houses back to life. But the adventure part, for me, is over.

After the loss of my parents and home, I moved forward, assuming that, with time, everything would work out. And that is true, sort of. But since I didn’t acknowledge the grief at the time, it is still festering within. Even now, writing once again about this period of my life, I want to shut my computer lid and read a book about someone else’s life. Instead, I do what I advise my students not to do when writing, pop out of Word to watch dog videos on Facebook.

Last night I had a reoccurring dream about our Saugerties house. Donald and I were back in the house, but it was no longer our house; we were trespassing on someone’s else’s territory, someone else’s life. In my dream, the house was the same but haunted, a threat looming, the sense of bad to come. Creepy. When I was a child, I was plagued by nightmares, and now, in my 60s, I feel I am picking up where I left off.

I know I have written about these events before, so, like my reoccurring dreams, I apparently write reoccurring columns. Will multiple attempts to capture the emotions ease the loss?

Oh, right, this column is about adventure. Let’s return to the point.

While we were walking dogs last weekend, my neighbor reminded me that when you are older it is hard to make plans with the assumption your health will be intact to see the end result. My parents’ deaths are a perfect example. She said this to me in relation to the adventure with our houses. Because she knows I want to move away from this place and all it represents. She worries about me.

But.

Recently I have been reflecting about chance. It was pure chance that I was born here, in a country that is not torn apart by war or starvation or poverty. It was pure chance that I was born into a relatively stable, financially secure family. Since teaching at SUNY Sullivan and the prison, I have heard so many stories of childhood trauma, of poverty, of violence, of addiction, of losses far greater than my own. These stories put mine into perspective.

I was randomly born into privilege, just as so many of my students were not. So I don’t buy the idea that I “deserve” to get what I want, as soon as I want it. Many people do not get what they deserve. So yes, I want to move on. But being here is not bad. I live in a beautiful area in a comfortable, newly renovated home. The emotional taint that I associate with this place comes from events unrelated to it.

Adventures are by nature risky. If our luck holds, we will still be alive and healthy when this adventure ends and the next begins. (Insert crossed fingers emoji here.)