A Bout of the Swine

When you're sick, the last thing you want to hear is a co-worker of one of your exes share with you, "You must have been hanging around *name omitted to protect the guilty*. He's been sick too, they think his girlfriend has the swine flu and he's been told to stay home until he's over it."

Of course the guy telling you has absolutely no clue that you and swine flu's boyfriend ever had a thing going so he doesn't realize that the dagger he just brandished and placed in your heart didn't make you feel (a) better (b) sympathetic to swine girl's plight or (c) thankful for the reminder that jackass has moved on while you're still wondering how it is that the guy who seemed the most right for you is obviously still Mr. Wrong.

You murmur some sort of comment in reply not even knowing what you're saying and then you pause. Convenient, you think. Deer season just opened and the boy you know best who likes to hide out in tree stands and stake out Bambi is suddenly down with an illness that could keep him out of work and out of the woods for an extended period of time.

Plausible? Yes.

Possible? Absolutely.

Bloody likely? Not a chance.

Honestly though I am over him. For the most part anyway. It's just that when he calls, and yes, he still occasionally calls, it's like an instant connection to my heart when he says, "Hi," and I can't help myself but to say "Hi," right back.

I'm going to have to work on this. Moving forward is hard enough to do when you keep opening doors to the past and one cannot waste time on things that if they were going to be would have already been. So I'll chalk this one down to useless information. However if swine flu is in season, I cannot help but to say I hope she's got it.

Just Before Bed

The fact that I've managed to drive past my own driveway at least four times that I can remember counting since KC and I moved in should not be held against me. In fact, it shouldn't even be mentioned because for the most part the only real reason I missed it was because I was too distracted noticing everything else. One night it was garbage cans, the next it was a parked car, and goodness only knows what reasons I had for the third and fourth.

My new neighborhood is cozy. One by one my neighbors have come over to introduce themselves. Some to be nosey to be sure and some just to say hello and offer a welcome to the neighborhood. Unfortunately none of them have come over with cookies or a casserole dish filled with something yummy. Evidently my new neighbors are not the welcome to the neighborhood here is some food kind. Sad really since up until today, I've spent the past three weeks learning how to be Julia Child's with a microwave as the gas line to my new stove wasn't hooked up. And after three weeks of being microwave dependent, nothing could have been better than coming home tonight and making my very first hot from the stove meal in my new home.

As for naming my house, I still haven't come up with a name. Maybe once everything is put away, and the walls are painted something other than the stark white they're painted now, maybe then a name will come. Like most things, I've just got to practice patience and wait for the name to come to me. After all my grandmother had her West Wing, my mother has her Culver's Cove, and who am I to break the chain?

Fall

One by one they fall. Sailing. Gliding. Reaching for the ground as some would still reach for the sky landing softly, the still green of the grass a backdrop to their beauty. And a story I once read as a child comes to life before me...

Freddie the leaf, so scared of falling from his precarious perch in the tree that he held on long after his time to fall had come and gone, scared of letting go and what it would mean. It is a beautiful story celebrating the wonderment of life and the eventuality of death and it did so in a way that even now years and years later, I recall his story and smile as I watch each Freddie after Freddie and Freddie gracefully descend from the limbs that were their summer homes.

Settling In

Surrounded by boxes one would think that I would feel a bit more motivation than I do to unpack them. Three months however of constant stress, both waiting on the house to close and waiting on the hours at my job to return to normal have made this anything but a productive day. For the first time in weeks, I am sitting down without a thought, without a care, and without any desire at all but to enjoy doing only what I choose to do and only when I choose to do it. And at the moment, I am all about doing nothing.

I shouldn't say nothing however. I did after all drag the old carpet out to the curb, a microwave I've had since before the beginning of time and more or less scraped up any other junk I could come up with to take advantage of free take your crap to the curb today for pickup tomorrow morning. Let it not be said that I would ever allow the opportunity to unload go by without searching high and low for the ever elusive throw out now or silently keep your items in storage for another goodness knows how many months peace go by.

Sadly I did not make as much of a dent in the pile as I would have preferred, but at least the rug - the rug that I had loved and dragged up two flights of stairs and had up until Kate flooded the living room of the apartment one month before our move still been in livable conditions - is gone. No amount of steam cleaning could clear the scent of mildew once mildew had sent in and with a summer like ours filled with nothing but black clouds and rain, drying out was not an option no matter how many fans I set about the room to try to set things right.

I am however about to return to my state of nothingness. My couch misses me and as a newly made homeowner in charge of the thermostat, it's time to go wrap myself in a blanket and prepare to freeze.

This Would Be Easier in Third Person

I thought it was something that I wanted. Something that I was due for a long time spent waiting. Weeks later I know far more than I ever thought I'd want to know about myself and the way my heart works. Or in this case, doesn't work. And it turns out that it had nothing at all to do with him and everything in fact to do with me.

The truth is I spend an awful lot of time hiding. Not saying what I'd really like to say, not being the person I really want to be, and doing all the things I know are only going to come back around to bite me in the ass before I can bat an eyelash or two.

When it comes to men, I'm a natural disaster. And I keep thinking that maybe eventually something will change despite the fact that I keep running myself around the same circles and ending up with the same old worn out results. For a smart woman, I am optimistically dumb. I say that and smile. Somehow being naive in this fashion makes me entertaining to myself...

But not everything is a made for TV movie funny. Interaction between two people can destroy you. Rip you to ribbons. Tear you from the inside out and leave you weak, praying for mercy and finding none.

You have to remind yourself that no one can make you feel less unless you let them. No one can make you feel nameless or faceless unless you give them the ability to make you invisible. And I am not a second hand replacement. A means to an end. A night or two of peace and sanctuary.

So I made two mistakes. One right on top of the other and both with very identical results. One that was more of an I waited this long and by George I'm going to try it out to see if it was worth the wait and one on a whim because for just a moment I wasn't thinking very clearly at all. Neither brought me any closer to having happy as a result.

These life lessons are hard to learn. Because to pick apart the bones, I had to tear the seams to show myself just how far I'd unraveled. I'm nowhere close to being who I'm meant to be. I get sidetracked far too easily. I make mistakes more often than not. And my best of intentions can be forgotten on the fly. But I'm awake and trying and considering how long I've been asleep, things can only get better from here.

So busy!

I really, really need to start writing again.

Hearth Fires

Houses have feelings. I believe that as much as I believe that calling a place home doesn't always make it feel like home. Places like people either accept you or reject you from the start, welcoming you in or making you feel uncomfortable enough to make you want to leave sooner rather than later.

I have lived, if sometimes you could call it living, in both of these places... Homes I've left that I've had no desire to leave and those I've ran from as if I couldn't flee fast enough from the hounds of hell. Uprooting time and time again searching for something a little more permanent, someplace to stay just a little bit longer, a home to call mine and mine alone.

I sit in my reading room typing away this morning in quiet while my daughter, the dogs and even the cats remain fast asleep. Around me there are empty boxes waiting to be packed, labeled and put by the door in their readiness to go. But I think to myself that it's not quite real yet, this leaving. And it just may be that I won't believe that some other house is going to be my home until I'm crossing its threshold with that first box of whatever magic it is inside that helps to make a house a home.

I dread the thought of taking my pictures down from their walls, rolling the carpets up to carry them down the stairs, and emptying each room until the only part left of me to leave behind is the color I chose to paint them. Golden yellow, coffee and cream, oatmeal with a cinnamon raisin accent wall, sage green for comfort and for KC bright hues of celeron greens and turquoise blues.

This apartment has been a blessing. From the moment I first saw it, I saw past all of the problems both big and small. To me it was like a fairy tale castle high above and away from the rest of the world, safe from the dragons below. I hid here until I learned how to live here and the living has been good.

I am not the woman I was when I landed here with broken wings and broken spirit. And I have learned to let go of the lesson that I was so cruelly and needlessly taught, forced to endure rather than live. The fear I used to feel, the tears I used to cry, the feeling of always needing to look over my shoulder to make sure that no one was there, all of that is gone...

A good home does that for you.

Rebuilding as it repairs.

Protecting as it provides.