trapped

You know the phrase 'I cried myself to sleep?'

I don't know about anybody else but I find that when I cry in bed, as I did last night, my nasal passages swell up and I can't breathe and then it's impossible to sleep without being able to breathe so I have to spend a lot of time not crying in order for everything to go back to normal, which makes me cry even harder and then I get mad at myself for starting the whole process over again.

Needless to say, it was not my best night ever.

It started out ok. Charlie, I thought, was doing quite well with one of the cats that now lives at our house. She even kissed the cat and there was no bad reaction although you could tell the cat didn't love it...yet.

Then my friends and I went out to yet another cat trivia night, this time at a downtown Orlando location. We ended up winning 2nd prize which surprised us as we felt we hadn't done all that well. The area where the cat cafe is located is not the best, kinda creepy, and I doubt we'll ever go back there but we had a fun-ish time.

But then we came home and I've got to admit that going out 3 nights in a row after a rather stressful weekend has taken a toll on me so I'm beyond exhausted, tired of picking my way through a minefield of crap and feeling out of step with my world. I feel like I'm trapped in this alternate universe that kind of looks like my life but everything is just wrong.

Right now I wonder why I fought so hard to hold on to everything and I miss my old 2018 life so badly that I can barely hold it together. I should probably hold my Fuck Off cup in front of me like a shield.

When we lived in Virginia and I would feel trapped in my life I would say that I wanted to get in the car, turn up the radio really loud and just head west. Then we moved west and lived right on the coast so I used to joke that if I tried heading west I'd run into the ocean in 5 minutes.

Well I'm back in the east now and I'm so tempted to load up Charlie in the car, point it in the direction of the sunset and just keep going.

I don't get this way very often but today I'm just done - with everything and everybody. 

adrift

Well, I survived the first weekend!

Today is my second day back at work. I'm learning a new morning routine which makes things a little challenging. Because I go into work very early (in order to be out in time to pick the kids up from school which I now have to do 2-3 days a week because their parents won't be able to) I have to get ready very quietly so that I don't wake everybody else up, especially B because he works nights. I can be quiet but Charlie tends to bark with excitement when she knows we're almost ready to go to work so I've taken to putting her in the car right after our morning walk and then going back in the house to pack up my lunch and head out the door. I feel bad about this but it can't be helped. Right now the whole morning feels weird and I miss enjoying a cup of cocoa while watching the morning news but I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually.

I think my plan is to keep busy, have plenty of things to do outside of the house while we work through the initial days of this new arrangement and I definitely did that this past weekend. Sunday morning I was out of the house bright and early to take Charlie to her grooming appointment. Well, not a real grooming, she was only getting her nails trimmed but they really needed it. It was cute that they put her name out on the board in front of the store. Of course I pointed it out to her and made her stand in front of the sign for a picture. I'm that kind of a dog mom. We were in and out of that appointment in less than 5 minutes.

Then I was off for a swim with one of my dearest friends. She and her husband live in Ontario, Canada most of the year but they've been coming down to Florida for the winter for over 20 years. It's just an amazing coincidence that we all ended up in the very same town but it's been pretty awesome for almost all of those 20 years to know that we'd have a chance to see each other at least once or twice a year and ever since I moved to Florida it's been a whole lot more than that. I sometimes felt guilty about spending weekend time with her which took away from time with Taz but he always encouraged me to go and when I started working part-time, so that I could swim on weekday afternoons, I made it a weekly event, sometimes even twice a week. He was happy that I had a friend to hang out with in Florida and I was happy that I could still have my weekends with him.

I don't know what I would have done without her last winter. Weekends were so hard for me, all those endless empty hours stretching in front of me, full of grief and pain and wretched loneliness but knowing that I could run down the road just a few miles and go swim with my friend was so helpful. We have always been close but we became heart sisters last year.

Sunday was our first swimming outing since she got back in town, one of many over the next two months. 

It was so lovely to relax and do something completely normal. For a few hours I was able to forget the chaos back at my house and that everything in my life has changed once again. We went out for lunch after our swim and that was a lovely treat from my friends. I don't get out to eat very often and I love it so. I especially love restaurants like Olive Garden where I know the portions are big so I can take half of my entree home and have it later in the week for dinner when grocery funds will be running low before payday.

Back at home I was by myself (with the adorable Charlie) for a little while but then I was called back into action to help with the move. My car was needed to help transport stuff and kids. I think that was the last load and now everything is at our house. 

I honestly don't know where everything is going to go, the garage is full of furniture, the living room is full of boxes, there is just a tiny path from the front door into the kitchen. I have no room for anything because my storage is now limited to my bedroom and that is already bursting at the seams. I'm feeling a wee bit overwhelmed by it all but, hopefully, within a month or two the boxes will have cleared and there will be a path through the garage so that I can start to donate some of my own furniture and make even more space out there. I might as well start getting rid of things, I have a feeling I'm going to eventually need to be a bit of a rolling stone, able to move freely through life without being held down by possessions and memories.

I think I'm feeling adrift right now. I was just getting used to my solitary life (not that I always liked it) and now I don't recognize my life. I don't even know who I am right now.

Wow, I guess that's why I write because I wasn't intending to say that when I started this post. I didn't even know I felt that way. Right now I'm not even letting myself think too much. I know I enjoy my time with the kids, that's when life feels...not normal but happy. But I also miss my routine of coming home after work, which is stressful these days, and just being quiet. There is no quiet with 3 kids even though they're delightful. They always want to be doing something, eating something, talking about something.

And I know it's just as hard for my friends. They had their own home for many years and now they don't. As much as I keep saying it's our house now, I wonder if they'll ever feel that way or will they spend the next year (or more) feeling like they're camping out. I can only imagine how weird they feel right now. We've all lost parts of our lives with this move. I hope I can help them, it's what I'm trying to do by changing my routines to accommodate their lives and also by staying away as much as possible so that they can enjoy time in the house with just their little family.

I had chorus rehearsal last night and it was a potluck (I had stayed up late making a casserole after helping with moving on Sunday night) and I found myself quite happy to walk out the door with my dinner in hand and go do something normal. I have a feeling I'm going to be keeping myself a lot busier from now on and it's definitely time to figure out how to start dating so that I almost always have something to do for right now. You know what my dream is? To meet someone who loves to travel so that I could get away from real life from time to time. Yeah, probably not going to happen but a girl can dream, can't she?

To end on a happy note (because I really don't like being negative) I was taking selfies with Charlie on Friday while I was waiting to pick the kids up from school and when I looked at the one above I realized it looked remarkably similar to a selfie Taz took with Shifu so I put them together. I think I'll get it printed out so I can frame it and put it up in the bedroom. Shifu and Charlie never knew each other but they look very alike and I always thought they would have been such buddies. I miss those 2 guys over there on the left, so much. Oh crap, and now I'm crying. I didn't do that at all over the weekend but I seem to be making up for it yesterday and today. Well, I guess I'm not ending on such a happy note after all but this picture really does make me happy. My little family.

move in day

The move in is happening! 

Yesterday and today there have been lots of boxes and furniture going into the house. I'm beginning to think that merging two full households is going to be a bit rough but eventually we'll get there. 

For right now, however, I'm trying to stay out of the way as much as possible.

Today I took Charlie to visit my mother and I think they both enjoyed the time together. Then Charlie and I went to see a friend who just got back into town for the next 2 months. We hadn't seen each other in almost a year and she was such a comfort to me this time last year so I couldn't wait to see her again. It seemed to be a good day to do things away from home.

But now I'm hanging out at home while everybody else is out to dinner. So, except for the explosion of boxes, it seems like a normal Saturday evening and I really appreciate it.

It's all going to be ok.

the last supper

Last night was the last night in *my* house. From now on it will be *our* house.

So I decided to go all out and make myself a nice steak for dinner. I haven't had a steak in forever and it just seemed right - a last supper of sorts.

Well, it was right until the smoke alarm went off. LOL I hadn't even started cooking yet but I was heating up the pan so that I could sear the steak and I guess the smoke alarm didn't like all that heat. Charlie didn't like the smoke alarm, she ran out to the back as soon as I opened the door and stood out there shaking, refusing to come back in even after the noise stopped.

She decided to join me pretty quickly when I started eating, of course; she's no dummy. The steak was done perfectly which is practically a miracle because I usually overcook it. It wasn't as tasty as Taz's steaks, he had some super secret marinade that he made up and I'll never be able to recreate it, but I improvised and it tasted good.

I have not let myself drink anything alcoholic for over a year. I've never been much of a drinker anyway but I know how tempting it could be to try to drink away my grief and I never wanted to do that so I have just stayed far away. However last night I decided to treat myself to the watermelon cooler that my brother in law left in the refrigerator last July. Quite tasty so I was pleased to see another one in the back of the fridge this morning. That will be a nice little treat somewhere down the road.

Yesterday it hit me that I really need a robe just in case someone knocks on my door in the middle of the night; I don't want to be tripping over myself trying to pull pajamas on. It also occurs to me that I need to remember to lock my door every night as we don't want any shocking surprises.

So I ran out last night and found the biggest, softest robe out there - full coverage and cozy comfort. I'm already kind of in love with it; I don't know why I've never had one before. You can see a little peak of my hot cocoa station in the bathroom. I'm all ready for my new morning routine.

Throughout this year I've wondered what Taz would think of me renting out the rooms and having our dear friends move in with me. On the one hand he'd hate it because it would mean he failed in (what he thought of as) his one mission - to take care of me and make sure that I never struggled financially. But hopefully being up in heaven has given him greater perspective and he's up there smiling, knowing that things have worked out the way they're supposed to and that I'll be with people that love me. He loved them as much as I do and we have been friends since even before the kids were born. 

And maybe, just maybe, he's given me a sign. Taz loved sunflower seeds. This morning I saw something underneath the loveseat, reached down and pulled out a whole sunflower seed. I'm taking it as a sign of his blessing on my new road ahead. If that's foolish then let me be foolish as long as I can.

the move begins

That was me last night right before I joined my new family at the movies. We watched Rise of Skywalker and it was a lovely evening which was nice because it was probably the last normal evening for awhile.

The move is about to begin. Tonight I spent a few hours finishing up the 3 rooms, taking care of all the little things that were left like unplugging all the electronic cables from the walls, figuring out what to do with the little piles here and there of things I couldn't figure out what to do with earlier which is why they ended up in little piles.

This was Taz's office. I can't get the white board off the wall so hopefully somebody can because it's going to be someone's bedroom and they probably don't want a white board.

This was how he decorated his office, it tells his story from the TinTin books he loved to the tennis that was his teenage passion to the fishing poles that kept us company every Friday in California when he was unemployed and we'd go to Pismo Beach and fish off the pier just to take our minds off our troubles. All these things are actually still on the walls because they are too high up and ladders and I don't play well together so someone taller (and more coordinated) than me is going to have to take them down. Some of these pictures will go up on the walls of my bedroom while others will gather dust in the garage. I will definitely put up the "Let Us Always Be Adventurers" picture. I bought that for Taz for Valentines Day in 2015. It's a vintage map of Southeast Asia (where he was born) from an old National Geographic. Adventure was always our word and now it's mine.

This was my beautiful guest room. I loved having a house with a dedicated guest room and I loved having people come to visit us, especially my sister. 

The guest room as it was. Not the best picture but it's the only one I can find. I never thought about taking pictures of the room before I started taking it apart. I left it as is until the last possible minute because I kept hoping somebody would come visit for Christmas or New Years. That was stupid of me.

There's one more room that I've emptied but it's not quite camera ready yet. It was supposed to be my studio, my reading room, my special place but unfortunately it was mostly a storage area and it's proving to be the toughest one to completely empty. I worked in there after work today but eventually got overwhelmed so I will finish up tomorrow morning before work.

Because, tomorrow they are going to start moving small things over and Friday will be the big moving day with all the furniture. Luckily Charlie and I will be at work that day so by the time we get home, it should all be done.

That means tomorrow night will be my last night in the house alone. I'm finding it way more emotional than it probably should be. 

I kinda can't stop crying, I just feel overwhelmed and scared. I know this is the right thing to do but somehow, at least right now, it feels like I'm taking a giant step backwards in this whole adulting thing. How did I go from being a wife with my own home to having roommates and being so single it hurts? It's certainly not how I ever expected my life to go.

Oh well, it doesn't matter what I expected, it's how things are now. And I know I'll settle down and things will be better. Once the kids are here I won't dwell on all the things I've lost, all the ways my life is so different now. I never think about that when I'm with them. I will just enjoy spending so much time with people that I love.

So I'm glad the move is starting and let's just get this done so that I can begin living the rest of my life.

It's going to be ok.

change is in the air

Today is a pretty exciting day because, as of this morning, pretty much everything changed around my house.

The movers totally flaked on me yesterday. They were supposed to show up at 1 but by 1:45 they weren't here and when I texted them they said they were stuck at a previous job which was more complicated than they thought it would be. Sigh. They asked if they could reschedule to the next day.

Normally I wouldn't agree to take time off work (which costs me money) because of somebody else's mistake but in this case it was ok because I had already planned on staying home on Monday morning for the cable guy to come install the Internet. More on that exciting development later.

So the movers finally made it (an hour and a half late) this morning and I kept them busy moving boxes and furniture into the garage and then moving furniture from one room to another here in the house.

Here is the living room yesterday. That's pretty much the way it has looked for over 19 years. I bought all the furniture for the house in 2 hours after landing in Florida at 6am on a September day in 2000. We had to fully furnish the house right away so that we could start renting it out for vacationers. Taz couldn't get away from work to help me so I did everything in 5 days so that the whole house was ready when he finally came at the weekend. So I have a big emotional investment in these couches even though they are looking a bit shabby these days and we had plans to completely replace them. But they can't stay the way they are now because the family moving in has their own, nicer, couch which we're going to use.

So I had them move the big couch into my bedroom. First, it's so comfortable that I've been sleeping there since I broke my arm. At first it was necessary because I needed the support on my bad arm and I continue to sleep there because it feels less lonely than my empty king size bed. It's silly but bumping up against the back of the couch almost feels like I'm being cuddled. I guess that's pretty pathetic.

Secondly I wanted the couch in my room so that I have a comfortable place to sit and hang out when I feel like being alone. I can stream TV or work on my research or nap. And if I want the kids hanging out with me we all have a place to sit.

It wasn't easy to get that big couch in there. It's a sleeper sofa (not that I have the room to pull it out anymore) so it's HEAVY and it wasn't going to go through the bedroom door easily. One of the mover guys was ready to give up but I was quietly insistent that they figure it out. I suggested they take the door off the hinges but they shot that idea down...until all their bright ideas didn't work. They finally took the door off and the couch got through the opening fairly easily. Men are so silly sometimes...and by silly I mean stupid and arrogant and annoying.

In order to have room for the couch they needed to move my big dresser, which has been sitting in this spot since it was delivered there in 2000, over to another wall.

Luckily this was accomplished much easier than the whole couch maneuver. I spent a lot of time measuring everything to make sure it would all work but I couldn't help but giving a little squeal and doing a dance of joy when it all really worked. 

And this is the new interim living room. It doesn't look all that different from what it used to be (remember the picture on the top of this post?) but it seems like a world away for me. In place of the big couch I have moved the smaller matching loveseat. That loveseat will be replaced in a week with my new roommates' couch but I need somewhere to sit for right now when I'm surfing the 'net and binge watching tv while guzzling soda and eating red meat. Got to enjoy all my bad habits before the rules of the house change.

I also had a small floral loveseat moved out of one of the bedrooms and it's going to be a permanent feature of the new living room. It was originally my mother's and Taz and I hauled it to our house 2 years ago when mother moved from her cottage to assisted living. It was almost never used at her house so it's like new and I just love the mauve floral pattern, kind of Victorian. It will probably be my regular seat from now on; it's just big enough for me and Charlie. I don't imagine I'll spend nearly as much time just sitting in the living room watching TV from now on so I don't need much space.

It's kind of sad that my routines will have to change and I won't be watching TV in the living room anymore because I FINALLY HAVE INTERNET/STREAMING AGAIN!!!

Yes, while I am relieved to finally have all the furniture moving over with, the most exciting news of the day is that my Internet drought is over. Thank goodness. I called the cable company last week and set up an appointment to get the Internet re-installed and wifi set up so that we all can stream and surf from any room.

The guy came first thing this morning and it only took 15 minutes to bring me back into the 21st century again. It was really hard to be so unconnected for the past 3 months, despite what some people said on Facebook about how it would be so wonderful and the best thing that ever happened to me. I love to research things and it was painful to not be able to grab my computer any time a thought struck me. I could use my phone but a) it's ancient; b) I'm ancient and I prefer a laptop; and c) I ran through my cell phone data pretty quickly each month and then the cell company "throttled" me which meant my connection was glacially slow and frustrating.

I wasn't quite as frustrated with my lack of cable tv because I installed a digital antenna and was pretty pleased with the selection of channels that you can get for free. That's why I decided not to re-install cable today. I am going to get by with streaming and I'm able to use the cable company's app and my antenna to see some live tv. 

One good thing that came from my internet deprivation for 3 months is that I qualified as a new customer (because I'd not had their services for over 30 days) which means that I can take advantage of the new customer deals and I'm now paying about 1/3 of what I was before.

I am so damn happy to have it all back that I could barely wait to leave work today (after finally getting there at noon) so that I could come home and play on the Internet.

And look what I decided to do first - a blog post! No more having to wait until I get to work to type up whatever is on my mind. Hopefully this means more regular blog posts and being a little more productive at work. ;-)

So, lots of changes happening in my little world and many more to come next week. I am trying really hard to be serene and zen about all of this and just go with the flow.

I'll let you know how that works out for me.

perspective

There it is - my first selfie of 2020! Um yes, that's a Hallmark movie playing at my desk. Shh, don't tell anyone that I watch movies when I'm at work by myself.

So I've been thinking a lot about perspective lately. Sometimes all it takes is a slight change and things that seemed impossible just fall into place.

Small case in point - when I went out to lunch with Taz's former co-worker the other day he and his wife gave me a $50 gift card to Outback. Totally unexpected and so generous and yet my first thought was "That was so sweet of them but I can't use this, I don't have anybody to go out to dinner with" and that made me sad. I'm so used to thinking of everything with the perspective of being a couple that approaching things as a single sometimes defeats me before I even get out of the gate.

I spent several days continuing to think this way but then suddenly I shifted my perspective a little to the left and realized that Outback does takeout, they even have parking spaces dedicated to takeout customers (I have an Outback right down the street from me so I must have been driving past their parking lot at the time of this revelation) and my huge gift card could provide a LOT of takeout for me...and Charlie. Suddenly, rather than being a burden, that gift card really was a GIFT. 

And I don't know why I didn't think of it before, I have certainly gotten takeaway from that Outback over the years (and eaten it while in the pool which is the ultimate in decadence) but I was so busy looking at it through the lens of loss that I almost cheated myself out of some good food.

Another recent perspective thing came up yesterday when I was clearing out a dresser that I'm giving to the kids. Getting rid of the stuff in the dresser wasn't so bad, it was mostly tops that are too big for me now, but I couldn't figure out what to do with the earring holder and other things that have always resided on top of that dresser.

Then I looked in at my bathroom which has counters on each side of the room. One counter is mine and it's filled with makeup and other girl crap. The other counter was Taz's and it's empty. It wasn't always empty, I kept it just like he left it (filled with boy crap) for most of the year but had to clean it up in August when I went away to Virginia and had my godfamily housesit Charlie.

So there I was with a totally empty side of the bathroom just doing nothing and I suddenly realized that one of the "benefits" of being single was that I could spread out and use both sides of the bathroom now. Hey there has to be some benefit!

And so that's where the jewelry is now although I admit that I am having a little trouble getting used to it. I walked out of the bathroom 3 times this morning headed to the dresser before I realized that my earrings and necklaces were no longer there.

I'm going to turn the rest of that counter into my own personal snack station. I figure I will be spending more time in my room so I'll be moving my hot cocoa maker (otherwise known as a coffee machine to real adults) into the bathroom and putting together a snack drawer so that I don't have to throw on clothes to go to the kitchen for a midnight snack. My days of naked rambling through the house are over, I'm afraid. I guess that also means no more midnight skinny dipping either, darn it. That was kind of the best part of my summer.

I've also ordered the cutest retro mini-fridge that will sit on the counter so that I can indulge in sodas (or adult beverages) without setting a bad example for the kids.

And yes, that adorable mug up there will have to be kept in my room. I have a feeling the parents would not appreciate one of the kids running across that. I love that mug, sometimes it's a perfect reflection of my mood.

I'm really going to work on this perspective thing because I know the coming weeks are going to be difficult for me. As excited as I am about my godfamily moving in, and as relieved as I am about being able to afford my mortgage again (I wouldn't have been able to pay December's payment without my mysterious benefactor. As it was I didn't pay December until the 30th) I am still nervous about having people in my house, sharing my space. I'm not very good about that sort of thing, as we learned during my roommate disaster of last summer. Heck it took a whole year of marriage for me to get used to living with Taz and I was barely an adult at that time; my routines are way more embedded now.

So I'm going to work on perspective and I'm also going to make sure I have a little nest of my own to retreat to when things get a little too peopley at my house. As an introvert, I know I need to take care of myself in that way.

And finally, music is my answer to every question. So many songs on the radio speak to me right now but this one is especially meaningful. Hope you enjoy.