I have for many years used the word bittersweet to describe so many moments, but recently have had to use it to describe a change I don't want, a change I have fought tooth and nail against, a change that frankly I'm just exhausted and unable to keep my head up and above the water any longer without making. And I'm bitter about it and praying that whatever sweetness in this situation is there, will soon show itself in great bounty.
Movers will be here in a few days to clear out my beloved little Love Nest and move everything back to The Big House. After sinking every dime we had...and quite a few we didn't have...into updates and renovations, we've not had a single dignified offer. Over a year of paying for two homes and only using one has taken a huge financial toll and seems beyond wasteful.
My husband and I had a fleeting thought of renting The Big House, we surely could, but much like we could never have sent our boys away as newborns to be raised by strangers, we can't turn over this newly reborn house to be ruined by strangers, either. Any scratch in the floors, any mark on the glass of the shower we've never even used, any mar on the paint that cost more than the first car I bought myself, one drip of oil on the driveway that cost more on the first car we bought our child...it would slay us and we'd be THOSE landlords and no one deserves that.
We love the Love Nest. The simple life. The smaller footprint. The easy small town living. The wonderful, precious friends we have made. The new life we have forged for ourselves here delights us.
And we are leaving.
Telling friends has been heart wrenching. Some have been angry. Some have been hurt. Some have simply seen it as a moment in time. People have, in an effort to help, openly second-guessed our decision...but at the end of the day, it is OUR decision and no one else's...unless they want to buy our other home, which we will gladly sell!
Because I love my job, the first thing we did was a cost/benefit analysis and then a chart of pros and cons of each decision and then weigh the value of each. The answer was clear. Waterford crystal clear. Renting the Love Nest was an easy option and wasn't going to give us the emotional hit in the gut that renting The Big House would.
Other than our bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and dining room we are completely changing how each of the other 11 rooms will be used. Because we totally dismantled my beloved studio and we're not going to reinvest in scrapbooking furniture or cabinetry again, my husband is turning it into a massive man cave. He is actually excited about that. A little more excited than I ever imagined and I think he's enjoy the giddy feeling from that just a bit.
I'm using a former guest room as my office and I'll have an amazing view of the golf course from tee box to greenway and thankfully kept much of my home office furniture in storage. We're going to have an exercise room in a former child's bedroom and we'll buy a dreadmill so on the very hot and very cold days we can run, but it that will hopefully sit mostly unused. We're going to get a Total Gym at some point and we're excited about that.
We love, love, love our neighborhood and neighbors and so there is that bright sterling lining to this dark storm cloud that we just can't seem to shake with this house right now. I preach to people all the time that when God doesn't want to open a door, you can bang on it all you like, it isn't going to open. Or, if you DO force it open, you may find yourself in a place you truly do not want to be on so many levels. So maybe this is Karma, Kismet, God's hand...whatever you want to call it, that we return to Charlotte and leave Mooresville for the time being. Who knows what is in store for us beyond tomorrow? We can guess, but we do not know. And I think our ability to accept that will allow us to transition with grace and dignity and at least the feeling of choice....though truth be told, our choice would be to sit at a closing table and sign away our rights to the house and hand the keys to the three beautiful new entry doors we had installed front, back and side over to them to start making new memories for their family. So we'll be on the market until the last day of September and if someone hasn't chosen to call it home for their family by then, then we'll continue to call it our home for who knows how long.
For now, we will start adding more memories for our family. And I know they will be sweet.
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
The very best run I've ever had. It was GREAT!
The day was perfect. 65 degrees, slight breeze, sunny but not blinding me. My pace was perfect, each step was light and I was in flight beautifully. My Garmin was letting me know that I'd finished my seventh mile and I knew that I would get in nearly 10 before I was home based on where I was, deep in The Cascades. The air felt so marvelous on my skin, my breath in through the nose, out through the mouth felt silky and perfect, my arms swinging beside my body and encouraging me on. It felt nearly effortless and I found myself laughing at the pure joy of the run.
And then I woke up.
The week before my surgery my husband took me to Athleta and encouraged me to buy a full price outfit that I had been coveting. "For your first run after your surgery, something to look forward to!" I bought the top and bottoms and have looked at them longingly, lovingly more times than I can count. They are on the top of the dresser where I keep all my running gear. I look forward to the day I can actually wear them. But in my dream I had them on.
I woke so incredibly happy, my soul was soaring with joy, I was actually laughing out loud as I came into consciousness. But then I realized where I was and I was so incredibly disoriented because the dream I'd emerged from had been so real, I had to get my iPad out and look at the date. I immediately realized it was just a dream, though so fabulously real and it made me cry for a moment before I went back to sleep.
My healing is going well in some areas and slower than expected in others. There is still one final surgery that is a possibility. A horrible, awful, painful and difficult to recover from surgery. We won't know if I will have to have it until what I can only presume will be another painful and humiliating test in front of several people has taken place. I know they cannot assess the continued need for it until I am much further along in the healing process. When I asked at my last appointment about when I might be able to jog again she said it might be premature to look at dates until I was truly healed and not disrupt any progress.
The idea that I might not get to run again, if the surgery was not successful enough, if my healing is never complete enough--which is a possibility--makes me cry a few times a week. I know that in the big scheme of things there are far greater problems in the world and the people standing in line to trade my troubles for theirs would wrap the earth like an 80s belt...big and wide...but to me this really is a huge and important part of my life.
Walking 52 feet from one end of my house to the other exhausts me, the idea of running 13.1 miles again seems surreal...but I want it to be real again, so badly. And so very soon. But I can't be my normal rush, rush, rush self. I have to wait and let tissues bond, strengthen, heal and learn how to use my new anatomy and be fully tested and cleared first.
The good news is, I sleep much of the day and get to spend my time dreaming and in my dreams I often find myself on the road, in my new outfit, on a most perfect day and having an incredible run. And this I know...no matter how short, how slow my pace, how hot or cold the day....that next run WILL the very best run I have ever had.
Saturday, May 2, 2015
I just don't care and that is okay with me.
As I prepare to turn the corner into my fourth week I have had highs and lows. I had a few days last week where I thought YES--THIS IS IT, but the end of the week has me thinking I might have done a little too much, too fast. Crazy things...like going on a 30 minute car ride with my husband to enjoy the sunshine and coming home utterly exhausted. Or trying to both take a shower AND dress in something besides a robe. My husband found me on our bed, clothing askew as if I'd been in an altercation, one leg and arm hanging off the bed and quite deeply asleep after attempting something so crazy back to back. So I've given up on some things that were once automatic. And I just don't care right now.
Things I used to take for granted, I no longer do. Waking when I'd like and staying awake for a television program or reading a magazine article and being able to recall anything about it at all, 10 minutes later. Not happening right now. Eating and drinking, what a rollercoaster that has become. I really can't bring myself to eat most of the day, I'm nauseated when I wake, the anti-nausea meds make me both sleepy and further suppress my appetite and by the time the evening rolls around I'll have a little something, and then again right before bed, but hovering at a 7 day average of 531 calories a day (thank you, My Fitness Pal!) on average and less than 30 oz of water is not good. I am a champion liquids person, I used to drink 150+ ounces a day without a thought, but it actually exhausts me to hold a large bottle of Powerade Zero and sip on it. HA--seriously? Now I DO care about my nutrition, but right now I'm peeing enough to pass the daily test and anything beyond that...I just don't care!
I was felled by an incredibly, mind-blowing and inescapable kidney infection and for four miserable days I laid in my bed, holding my hand pressed to my privates and crying during my waking and sleeping time and praying for the antibiotics to kick in so I did not have to be readmitted to the hospital. The Foley catheter that I disliked so very much had benefits, to be sure, because once it was removed I had to be catheterized 8 times a day and that is likely what led to the infection. Plus it was difficult and let's face it...no one ever says "GOSH, I'd give anything to cath instead of peeing like a regular person!" When I finally graduated off the cath, I wanted to tell anyone who would listen how happy I was about that, but since I really don't see anyone other than my husband and the dogs, there was little chance to rejoice publicly.
When I was younger I recall, vividly, being so amazed (horrified/shocked/praying I never looked like that) by how freely certain things were shared and/or shown by my elderly relatives. Now they'd whisper cancer like a stage mother and avert eyes as it left their lips...but get changed into a swim suit at the local pool? Heck yes, and none of my relatives were ever in the slim or petites section. They'd parade around in complete nakedness without a whim or worry and I found that so odd. I went so far as to nearly master the ability to hover so my bare feet and ankles were not visible under the changing curtain as I went from street clothes to swimsuit and back again. And I cared. Cared DEEPLY. Past tense. Just don't care right now.
But now that I am edging in on the ages they were when parading so fully absent of any shame or decency....I get it. I really do.
Once you've been splayed out like a suckling pig and had what feels like every single nurse, aide, doctor, resident, intern and paperclip counter see you fully naked, dripping with equipment, bloated and pasty and moaning...you just don't care. I really just don't care any longer. I realized when I answered the door, wearing my towel post-shower, holding my Foley bag in one has as I reached to to sign for a package with the other and seeing the utter horror in the eyes of my postman and wondering for just the briefest moment if that event would result in the much needed invention of mental bleach by him in the near future to erase from his mind's eye the picture of a saggy, wet headed, make up free, white as paper woman in the chocolate towel forever. And immediately after that moment of thought...not caring.
I know just about all of my older female relatives had a hysterectomy. That, by the way, was the least and easiest of my five surgeries according to my surgeon. And I know they'd likely been through the same great pain, poking, proding, public displays and just not giving a flying fig. And I don't. I just don't care how I look. Which is not to say I don't want to look good, I still do. But I just don't care. It's a very strange place to be. I have decided I can be clean and in pull on pants or I can be without a shower and have something a little 'more' on. Could not tell you the last time I used a blow dryer and my hair left to nature doing the drying well...let's just say if I were older and the movie had been created later, Mel Brook's Bride of Frankenstein would be a shoo-in for me to win a suit against for copying MY look. It's downright frightening.
But I just don't care.
Don't know if I ever will care again as much as I did the first 48 years of my life.
And that's okay with me.
Perhaps letting go of always having to be well turned out, always being ON, always being a YES person and pushing myself is a gift I'll get out of all this. That, and not peeing myself half a dozen times a day. :)
Things I used to take for granted, I no longer do. Waking when I'd like and staying awake for a television program or reading a magazine article and being able to recall anything about it at all, 10 minutes later. Not happening right now. Eating and drinking, what a rollercoaster that has become. I really can't bring myself to eat most of the day, I'm nauseated when I wake, the anti-nausea meds make me both sleepy and further suppress my appetite and by the time the evening rolls around I'll have a little something, and then again right before bed, but hovering at a 7 day average of 531 calories a day (thank you, My Fitness Pal!) on average and less than 30 oz of water is not good. I am a champion liquids person, I used to drink 150+ ounces a day without a thought, but it actually exhausts me to hold a large bottle of Powerade Zero and sip on it. HA--seriously? Now I DO care about my nutrition, but right now I'm peeing enough to pass the daily test and anything beyond that...I just don't care!
I was felled by an incredibly, mind-blowing and inescapable kidney infection and for four miserable days I laid in my bed, holding my hand pressed to my privates and crying during my waking and sleeping time and praying for the antibiotics to kick in so I did not have to be readmitted to the hospital. The Foley catheter that I disliked so very much had benefits, to be sure, because once it was removed I had to be catheterized 8 times a day and that is likely what led to the infection. Plus it was difficult and let's face it...no one ever says "GOSH, I'd give anything to cath instead of peeing like a regular person!" When I finally graduated off the cath, I wanted to tell anyone who would listen how happy I was about that, but since I really don't see anyone other than my husband and the dogs, there was little chance to rejoice publicly.
When I was younger I recall, vividly, being so amazed (horrified/shocked/praying I never looked like that) by how freely certain things were shared and/or shown by my elderly relatives. Now they'd whisper cancer like a stage mother and avert eyes as it left their lips...but get changed into a swim suit at the local pool? Heck yes, and none of my relatives were ever in the slim or petites section. They'd parade around in complete nakedness without a whim or worry and I found that so odd. I went so far as to nearly master the ability to hover so my bare feet and ankles were not visible under the changing curtain as I went from street clothes to swimsuit and back again. And I cared. Cared DEEPLY. Past tense. Just don't care right now.
But now that I am edging in on the ages they were when parading so fully absent of any shame or decency....I get it. I really do.
Once you've been splayed out like a suckling pig and had what feels like every single nurse, aide, doctor, resident, intern and paperclip counter see you fully naked, dripping with equipment, bloated and pasty and moaning...you just don't care. I really just don't care any longer. I realized when I answered the door, wearing my towel post-shower, holding my Foley bag in one has as I reached to to sign for a package with the other and seeing the utter horror in the eyes of my postman and wondering for just the briefest moment if that event would result in the much needed invention of mental bleach by him in the near future to erase from his mind's eye the picture of a saggy, wet headed, make up free, white as paper woman in the chocolate towel forever. And immediately after that moment of thought...not caring.
I know just about all of my older female relatives had a hysterectomy. That, by the way, was the least and easiest of my five surgeries according to my surgeon. And I know they'd likely been through the same great pain, poking, proding, public displays and just not giving a flying fig. And I don't. I just don't care how I look. Which is not to say I don't want to look good, I still do. But I just don't care. It's a very strange place to be. I have decided I can be clean and in pull on pants or I can be without a shower and have something a little 'more' on. Could not tell you the last time I used a blow dryer and my hair left to nature doing the drying well...let's just say if I were older and the movie had been created later, Mel Brook's Bride of Frankenstein would be a shoo-in for me to win a suit against for copying MY look. It's downright frightening.
But I just don't care.
Don't know if I ever will care again as much as I did the first 48 years of my life.
And that's okay with me.
Perhaps letting go of always having to be well turned out, always being ON, always being a YES person and pushing myself is a gift I'll get out of all this. That, and not peeing myself half a dozen times a day. :)
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