I thought I was just changing the sheets

Ya think about changing your sheets. Whether you do it as a disciplined thing or you wait until the sheets peel themselves off your bed and beg you PERMA PRESS ME, STAT, you are so glad when change comes. The clean sheets feel so crisp and fresh. But then the cycle repeats itself and you are rolling around in bed wishing the Snuggle bear would just do you a favor and toss you some new linens. Change happens again, exchanging the dirties for the cleans.

The thing about moving from Boston to Tennessee for me was that I naively thought I was just changing a set of sheets. It was time. The city living, I was ready to wash ourselves clean of the endless traffic, the population density, the high priced everything, the pollution. And so we did. We not only changed the sheets, we moved the whole bed and caboodle to the South wherein we were no closer to family and were now without friends. The soft scent of the new sheets wore off quickly as we battled real estate woes back in Boston for well over the first year.

Had we not experienced what we believed was a very specific calling to change our sheets at the appointed time and to come live with some new ones in an appointed place, I think the experience would have been much more fraught with doubt and fear.

And now, here we are. We have changed so much more than our sheets. My children pull bricks from their driveway to find potato bug colonies, they sing sabbath school songs in the car, they know about cherry limeade at Sonic, they chase butterflies on our acreage like a couple of Smurfs for crying out loud. They are Southerners. They have no concrete memories of the urbane streets we strolled everyday in their former city, splashing in the Frog Pond on the Boston Common, riding the T from Shawmut Station to Harvard Square.

These memories are becoming faint for me, too, like illustrations of someone else's enchanted life who was able to do the unthinkable: walk to get a chai latte on her way to work.

I thought I was only changing the sheets, you see. I thought I got to retain all the things I still liked about my life as I traded the excesses of the city for the simple pleasures of the country.

Not so. I just exchanged all the maladies and woes of my former geography for a new set in my new geography.

I am still uncomfortable in the South. I am still the weird girl in social circles. I am still too direct in most settings, and totally uninterested in pleasantries. I am intense, honest, generous, clumsy, and self-deprecating. I have a flair for brightly colored fabrics. I am a product of a Midwestern upbringing, a MidAtlantic education, and a New England professionalism. I cannot disinherit these sheets that have wrapped me up for twirtysomething years. I can only clean them and make them presentable.

My one comfort, other than the amazing Mr. Loverpants who should win a best supporting role in the play about my yammering, is the promise from Psalm 46:

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.

Can I get a li'l 'Bless her heart' from y'all?

It sounds like a headline from the Onion

Woman applies for new Tennessee driver's license and receives it twenty minutes later. I know. That sounds like some impossible headline from The Onion. Like when the Supreme Court said, "Same-sex Marriage? Big Whoop. Who cares?" That was a funny headline from the spoof site.

But I bluff you not. I actually departed work today to go obtain my state driver's license, which I should have done two years and two months ago but somehow didn't (see also: unpleasant chore avoidance). Instead I flashed my Massachusetts card with pride, long after I owned real estate there.

You can imagine my dread, having this long overdue task ahead of me to complete in the middle of the work week, on Sept. 11 no less, and then 20 minutes later I receive it. In fact, they were calling my number BEFORE I had the whole application filled out. The!!

So, to review:

• I didn't arrive first thing as I was supposed to.
• My MA driver's license was due to expire so something was guaranteed to go wrong in the next week.
• I had to go straight from work which means I had to take the motorino which means I was probably going to crash on my way to get my driver's license because my life is that ironic.
• It's the Department of Motor Vehicles for crying out loud.
• All the employees were totally courteous.
• I had all the right documentation, despite fact that I can't find anything of importance ever but still find the user's manual to the baby swing that we gave away 3 years ago.
• I got my driver's license in less time than it sometimes takes to buy post-it notes at Rite-Aid.
• TWENTY MINUTES, PLAYERS!

I believe this is proof that either the Cleveland Indians are going to win the World Series this year or Jesus' return is very imminent. Possibly both.

Condo Closure

The day we became homeowners was the night we conceived our first child. We must not yet have unpacked our good sense from the boxes of our Target brand china littering our new condominium. We bought that home, a 2.5 bedroom, 2 bath unit in Boston, at the top of the market. We were financially hopeful (see also: blithe, stupid, entitled) twentysomethings, married for a year. What we saw at that first open house: granite countertops, a spiral staircase, a cool bonus room where I could do yoga.

We made an offer that day; we absolutely kissed on the first date.

A month later, I peed on a stick and confirmed, proof-positive, that a gummi bear with a heartbeat was squatting in my uterus.

Our relationship with our new home shifted spontaneously and inexorably.

The sparkling granite dulled. The spiral staircase loomed like a deathtrap as my belly expanded. That extra room? Not so extra anymore.

We spent our first Christmas in our new home, as flying to see my parents in Ohio was impossible at this late stage of my pregnancy. My in-laws stayed with us for five days--alternating shades of cozy and crazy.

Still, hosting a major holiday in one’s home for out-of-town visitors solidifies a few things. You test the bounds of your home. You appreciate the warmth that it fosters when company comes. And then you appreciate running naked victory laps when they finally leave. Your home sees it all and loves you just the same.

Early in the new year, my water broke in the condo; my husband was working a night shift when it happened. I lounged on the futon, watching latenight episodes of “The Golden Girls,” aware that the next time I would lounge on this sofa, I would have a new housemate.

A week later, we brought our gummi bear home. She was perfect in every way.

She learned to crawl on the living room floor, she took her first steps rounding the corner into the kitchen.

During our third year of homeownership, we brought home a boy gummi bear. He slept all the time, which was a blessing when my husband got double pneumonia. He was out of commission, in horizontal position on the ground floor for a week while I tried to keep our children from sliding down the spiral staircase.

With 4 people living within 1200 square feet, friends often asked if it was time to upgrade. We resisted. Investments aside, we didn’t feel ready.  As with any relationship, one knows it’s time to move on when one stops growing.  It wasn’t time to break up with the condo yet.

And then it was. The condo seemed to initiate the break-up. The once shiny floors now caked in cereal puffs started to rebel like something from a Ray Bradbury story.

I accepted a job in Tennessee and we began to search for a tenant to occupy the property.

We packed our life into boxes once again.  The aura of our home reminded me of when my parents had separated and when I had left for college. The feeling was palpable:  Life in this home was never going to be the same.

Three young men became our tenants. We immediately received calls and e-mails from other residents in the condo building. The tenants were out of control. The whole building reeked of marijuana, the walls bumped from their loud stereo bass.

Our anxiety was only surpassed by a deep feeling of sadness. The home we had loved was now being exploited. Like hearing an ex had entered into an abusive relationship.

Deciding we could no longer assume the role of out-of-state property managers, we listed the condo for sale and there it remained with a For Sale sign in the window for almost 2 years.

Single white-walled condo seeks new love. Attractive features, interested in spending the best years of your life with you.

***

We closed on our condo yesterday. Short sale. We got nothing out of the arrangement other than our memories and the peace of knowing that someday our home might become a happy home to others. Somehow, after all we endured: threat of bankruptcy, foreclosure, expensive repairs, battles with insurance, lenders, the net result makes us feel very rich indeed.

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