I don't know where I belong. I've been staying at my parents' house for over a week now. I lived in this house for almost 20 years, it's not a strange place to me. The décor has changed, but it's the same structure. It's a comfortable place, it's a familiar place, but it's not my place.
45 miles to the east is my current residence. It's also a comfortable and familiar place, but it feels less and less like "home" every time I'm there. Our décor is being packed up, and for the last few months I've been mentally preparing myself to leave. My time there is limited, and has been cut even shorter now that I've spent the last almost 2 weeks at my parents'. And like my parents' home, it will always feel familiar but soon, it won't be my place anymore.
20 miles to the north of that is another place, a place that I've only seen once in my life, but will soon be the stage for the next chapter in our lives, the first place we will live without our son. Not counting the place we lived when we first got married, but that doesn't really count because we did end up living there with him, after he was born, ha, ha, ha. In my mind, I've been trying to prepare myself for this move as well: to have a new home base, a new town to claim as "home". I've looked at the pictures of the house (from the online real estate ad) countless times, trying to recall my fading memories of what it was like in person, mentally unpacking our belongings and organizing things and decorating and making it our home. But it's not my place yet, either. Right now it's still someone else's home. The only thing tying me there right now is a bunch of paperwork.
Don't mind me. I've had a lot of time to think about a lot of things lately.
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I started writing this a few days ago. When I first started writing it, I was having a bit of a pity party, which I don't even want to admit right now. Changes can be challenging, even if they're only temporary, but especially if they're open-ended. And it's not like things are going to go back to exactly the way they were before, because that's not how life works. But when I started writing this, and was thinking about how my home base has changed recently and will change again soon, I was at that tiresome point where I was sleep-deprived and stressed out and a little down and not knowing when things were going to progress. I don't want to whine (well, not much, anyway...) because other people are feeling worse than I am right now, and this I know for a fact because I'm temporarily living with one of them, and talking on the phone a couple times a day with another. I really am honored that I am in the position to be able to help out in this situation. It brings me so much peace to not have to worry about how my parents are doing right now. As much as I miss being with my hubby every day, and sleeping in my own bed, it makes my heart happy to be able to be here right now.
While all of this existential pondering is going on, the saga of settling on a closing date for the new place continues as well. I can't even tell you off the top of my head anymore how many amendments we've signed for this deal. I hate to complain because we did say we'd be flexible with the closing date so the sellers could find a new place, but we presumed that the sellers at least had a game plan and that they wouldn't wait until the last minute to decide to ask about changing the date! Our original closing date has now come and gone. The amended closing date, the ones the sellers finally proposed in writing, was declined by the title company. I wanted to cry. There have been a lot of times in the last 2 weeks that I've wanted to cry, but I haven't. Not because I've been telling myself not to cry, but I just don't really feel like crying. I either haven't reached that point yet, or I'm handling everything better than I thought I was. ;)
Closing Date #3 has been set. Today we received the confirmation email from the title company. If the sellers proposed another change right now...too bad, so sad. No more amendments. That's the closing date and we're sticking to it. We've been flexible and more than generous, and our realtor has also been working his ass off to get this settled for us. I bet he wishes we were paying him by the hour ;). Last weekend, we started buying new furniture for the new place. But it still seems surreal to me, and because of the person I am, I can't get my hopes up yet.
Meanwhile, in St. Paul, my Mom is making most excellent progress since her hip replacement surgery two weeks ago today! I'm impressed! Her mobility is pretty much back to her baseline, and I'm helping her get through all of her follow-up appointments and such. And over in Minneapolis, my Dad is making progress as well in the TCU. Or so I hear, based on telephone conversations with his nurses, doctor, and social worker. Not being able to see my Dad or his current situation has been very difficult and challenging. And knowing that he's in a strange place and confused about what's going on has made it even more difficult. But we've worked through some issues and apparently he is working hard on his physical therapy as well, because today his expected discharge date was moved from December 3rd to November 23rd. Insert happy dancing here!
So, that's where we're at now. There is light at the end of the tunnel and it's not the headlight of the oncoming train. :)
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