It's been hitting home lately that I'm really leaving this state, and I feel more sorrow over that than I would have expected. There is such a kalaidascope of impressions, images and emotions all tied up in this state.
When I first moved out here, I lived in a small town in northern Colorado, in near abject poverty. The rent was a little over four hundred a month and located directly in back of an Albertsons, if I remember correctly. If I bought juice, it was a splurge. My coffee came in large, red plastic jugs with snap covers.
I remember standing on the small front porch in the mild March sunlight, looking off toward the Rockies. That town was where I took my first job caring for the elderly, where I experienced the first death of someone that I loved and cared for with my own hands. It was where I first took the responsibility and risk of being a leader at work, something that took me from a part time position overnight to the hiring manager of an Alzheimer's wing in under two years.
And that's the crux of it, I suppose. Technically I was an adult before I moved out here, but I only came of age afterward. When I leave, not only will I leave a landscape that I know so well now, I'll leave that younger part of my life behind.
Now I'm in my thirties, married and hoping for children. I follow politics, I know how to balance a budget, my husband and I have financial assests and the risks that come along with them. We are squarely in the middle class. We're still young; far younger than I thought the thirties would feel back when I was, oh, seventeen.
October 27th
Keith and I are in the middle of one of those Level 10 arguments, you know, the kind that kicks one in the gut. The fascinating thing is that we are able to function perfectly well around the argument. This should come in handy when we have kids; they'll never even know.
Keith is the only man I know who can simply drop an argument, just drop it on its head. It doesn't matter how big it is or how emotionally charged. If he says there will be no more discussion, there is no more discussion. Last night he declared we would have two days to think it over, at the end of the two days we would decide together and that we would discuss it no more that night. Consequently, ten minutes later I'd almost forgotten we had been arguing.
I hate this week. This is a interminable week, the terrible, tension laden calm before the storm of three days of movers. Will they be here for eight hours a day? What will I do with myself? Constantly supervise?
No, I will hide. I hate having strangers in the house, I'm shy and don't like supervising. But where will I hide? They'll be systemically dismantling my entire home.
And after that, we'll have three days of essentially camping out in the bare bone remains of our home, cleaning. We'll be living out of suitcases. Will we have a renter by then? Who knows.
Three days of that before Keith can sign out on leave. By the time he does, we'll have lived through seven days of stress and upheaval. We'll have had no Internet, no TV.
After that, we drive the sixteen hour drive, still living out of the same suitcases. Our route takes us across the entirety of Kansas, which should be considered a punishment for low level crimes, like check fraud.
Finally, we arrive in Indiana and from a temporary home base at Keith's brother's house, we will begin the house search. That's where the good news begins, there are several houses to choose from. I guess that's a good thing about this market. There is one that is absolutely dirt cheap, but because someone tore out the entire kitchen before they moved out. We could buy that and with the savings buy new, energy star appliances. But also cupboards. Eh.
Tonight they are calling for snow, lots of snow. I've been feeling blue lately, especially today. So Keith surprised me with Mudslides and movies when he came home from work. I have been sitting on the couch nearsightedly attempting to sew up huge rips in his jeans but pretty much only succeeded in making them bulge and then tighten up in strange ways that harken back to the eighties. I'm going to have to tear out the stitches and try again using patches.
