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Garage Sales, Apartment Hunting and Mid-Life Crisis Retreats
Lots of things have been happening here lately and it’s a shame I haven’t been blogging them because now I have about a million years’ worth of things to talk about. I’ll have to gloss over a lot.
It’s spring which means two things to me:
1. The weather is awesome and we need to be outdoors all the time.
2. Summer is around the corner.Summer being around the corner is a bit stressful for me because that is when I’m planning on moving back to the beach. This is a good thing but I have so many mixed feelings about it.
On one hand it feels like the right thing to do—the only thing to do. We have to get out of this town. It makes me sad because a lot of my family is in this town and I want to stay with them. I want to take them with me out of this town.
Every day Bug has anxiety about school and I hope that moving back to a neighborhood that we know and love will fix a lot of that. I went apartment-hunting a few weekends ago and fell in love with the new bright happy big apartment complexes that happen to be in the number-eight-in-the-country school districts. Some of the complexes have schools across the street that we could walk to and playgrounds and swimming pools and farmers markets and…it just goes on and on with wonderfulness.
Of course then there’s the fact that they are about five hundred to a thousand dollars out of my price range.
Work is picking up. My books are selling. Things are looking really positive but the risk is great. I don’t want to sign a lease and then have a slow month and not be able to make it. I know I can always move back to this town. My parents would let me move in with them. It’s just that I want to make it on my own so bad. I guess this is what everyone wants. And maybe I will make it. I’m spending $300 a month on gas just taking Bug back and forth to see her dad so there’s that. If we moved closer there would be savings and less wear and tear on my car and me. The weekends are hard, as you know.
I’m not sharing this to get advice. I think I’m adviced out. I run every scenario over in my head and all the many many many variables every night from 3am to 4am and sometimes more. There are so many wild cards. I could get a new job. I love what I’m doing and I’m doing well but maybe a steady paycheck could give me the security I need. I’ve been thinking about being an assistant to an event planner. That’s a dream that I’ve never really seen to its fruition. Does anybody know anybody in Orange County who needs a kick-ass assistant?
Since I’ve got moving on the brain I’ve started packing. It is a bit early to be boxing things up but I can’t sit around and not do something. It’s hard to feel settled in a place when you know you are going to be leaving it in a few months. Now I know what all you military families go through. I’m not planting tomatoes. I’m not watering my backyard grass. It just isn’t my home anymore. It makes me sad because I love this place but I don’t see a future here. I see the neighborhood getting and worse and worse. I see crime every day. Kids with ankle bracelets and I’m not talking about jewelry. It’s not getting better here. I can’t stay here and be part of it. If I don’t leave, someday I won’t be able to and Bug will be engaged to someone who just got out of prison.
I know. I’m being overly dramatic. But this is what single moms do. Because we have to.
I had a garage sale and got rid of a lot of stuff. You know, because less stuff means less stuff to pack and move and if I can’t move into one of those fancy nice bright white apartments then I’m probably going to be moving into a studio with a hot plate and no windows and a carpet that smells like cat pee. Less stuff is good. Plus, I made a couple hundred bucks getting rid of stuff I don’t need. That felt good too.
Bug and her neighborhood buddies sold lemonade and made about twenty bucks off being cute. It was fun.
A couple of other neighbors had a garage sale too. It was like a block party. We all talked and hung out. It was great. I’m going to miss them. I talk about being afraid in this neighborhood all the time and it’s funny because I’ve made friends with all my neighbors, even the bad guys. The best way to deal with the bad guys is to look them in the face and get to know them. They are good people who have just made bad choices or been caught up in bad circumstances. I love them. I wish I could move them all to the beach with me. I wish I were a zillionaire and I could give them all jobs. I wish I could rescue everyone.
It’s been a really interesting year. I know it happened for a reason. It’s been a mile marker. I will never forget this part of my journey.
And speaking of journeys…I’ve finally settled on a theme for my big 40th Birthday Bash:
I’m calling it a Mid-Life Crisis Retreat. Whaddayathink?
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Sister Forever Friend
I had a crappy weekend this last weekend. I felt like I had no friends in the world which is the absolute stupidest thing ever because I have a lot of friends. I have all you guys. I have really good friends that I’ve spent years making. I have friends who will let me stay at their houses at the drop of a hat and have me over for coffee, who will take my kid for a sleepover without asking any questions. I have really really good friends who love me. So why was I feeling like a sad sack of pathetic?
You know how it is when you have drama in your life and you just feel like there’s nobody you can share it with because they’ve all heard it all already and they’re waiting for you to wake up and smell the coffee already? You don’t know who to turn to because it’s impossible to catch everyone up on the minute details that make you tick the way you tick and you’re just exhausted already trying to explain it? You know that feeling?
So I sat in my car for four hours not knowing where to go or who to call or what to do. I prayed to God to send me somebody to make the sadness go away but nobody came. That wasn’t what God wanted for me obviously. There I was waiting in my car for some miracle to happen, some magical mystical adventure to unfold and there was nothing. Just quiet and netflicks on my iphone which is actually pretty cool. But still I felt pathetic.
Somehow I got through it and the weekend went by. Weekends are always hard for me as you probably know due to my pending divorce and shared custody with someone who has always been a huge part of my life. Someone who is also a good friend which makes it even harder sometimes.
We came home and there was a package in my mailbox. A package with no return name, a familiar address in somewhat familiar handwriting.
Inside was a necklace from my brother. My brother. My brother doesn’t send me packages. It was really weird.
I don’t talk about my brother much outside of being annoyed at him from time to time when he comes to visit and messes up my house. And there’s the fact that he’s the father of my two nieces who I love to pieces and the husband of my dear sister-in-law. We have our moments but we kind of just take each other for granted. We don’t talk all that much. Not because we don’t love each other but because we don’t really have that much in common. He’s a mechanic. He listens to country music and likes to drive big red trucks. You know how it is. We just don’t really get each other.
Except that we do. We get each other on a deeper unspoken level. Not like twin-speak or anything but I just don’t really have to tell him much for him to understand what I’m going through. I don’t know if that’s why he bought me this necklace. I was all worried that he spent a fortune that he doesn’t have on it but he told me it only cost him fifteen bucks and he was just thinking of me.
So I’m wearing it every day.
It says “Sisters are forever friends” on it which kind of cracks me up because I don’t have a sister. I have a brother.
And he is my forever friend.
