Nesting

I am a nester.  My home is truly my sanctuary, and no matter how much I like flitting around in the big wide world, I'm always glad to come home.  At the end of an adventure - be that travel or simply a workday - I love walking up my front steps and coming into the familiar that is my home nest.

Which means that things have been a bit taxing lately.


I have a rather large desire for calm in my life.  Given that life is usually more chaotic than calm - deadlines! school projects! sickness! - I have always carved out time to come home and just "be" in my home.  Out in the world, people blow smoke as I walk down the street, and there are car horns, and there is so much rushing about, but in my own small sanctuary there are dishes lined up neatly in the cupboard and a pretty quilt on the bed and that little piece of art that I just love so much, and these small things add up to an oasis that I depend upon to keep my sanity.

Splitting up our house and its oasis-qualities is messing with my sanity.

Right now, things are in piles.  There is giant pile in the basement of kitchen items ready for Bryan to pack.  There are stacks of framed pictures.  There's an extra dresser, picked up for a song from Craigslist, halfway blocking a hallway.  There are half empty cupboards in spots.

Not cozy.  Not Zen.  Not an oasis.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day dealing with beds.  Bryan loves the style of "our" bedset, and since I don't, and I don't really want to sleep in "our" bed, he's taking it.  This, however, leaves me bedless.  And Katherine needs beds in both homes, and so needed a second bed.

A lot of problems can be solved by throwing money at them.  I can not tell you how much I have longed to go online, point and click, and then have somebody show up at my door with my desired items - including beds - in hand.  No such luck.

Instead, I've been hunting around Craigslist for suitable items.  Katherine requested bunkbeds, and though this doubles the cost (double mattresses, double bedding) of getting her a bed, and though I don't particularly relish climbing a ladder to change her sheets or read her stories, I recognized this as an opportunity to give her what she most desires, a positive outcome of the divorce (in her mind; she's wanted bunkbeds for ages but I kept telling her she had a perfectly good bed) in a sea of negative changes, and I agreed to it.  It turns out that bunkbeds are the most popular item ever on Craigslist, and I've spent a week sending messages to listings and not even hearing back because they're gone within minutes.

But finally, a friend of a friend came through - they had bunkbeds they were selling.  I enlisted my parents' help, and their truck, for hauling the beds.  And since I had them, I scrambled to find a bedframe/headboard on Craigslist for myself.  I couldn't bear used mattresses, so then we had to figure out cheap solutions to that problem.

Yesterday, my father and I disassembled beds and piled them in the basement next to the other piles.  I dealt with the under-bed dust bunnies.  I learned how to build bunkbeds.  I discovered that the bedframe I'd just purchased for myself was incomplete, and then spent some time spinning in circles trying to fix it. (Not fixed.  My boxspring is currently sitting on the floor, and last night I just hoped that the headboard didn't fall on top of me, because it's just leaning against the wall.)  And then I spent more money, because Katherine needed an extra set of bedding for the extra bed, involving heading out again to go to a handful of stores.

My nest has been a wreck from all of this chaos.  The basement looks like a cyclone has gone through it.

And my dishwasher broke, and suddenly I'm hand washing everything.

And there appears to be a leak by the chimney.

I am not managing this well.  I'm tired, and grumpy, and I want to have a tantrum.  Make it right!  Fix it!  Give me back my order and calm!

Bryan moves out in two weeks.  A month from now, we'll both have calm, because I will run around getting things done to make it happen.  I will keep reorganizing cupboards, I will collect hand-me-downs from friends to fill in the gaps, I will spend money buying necessities where there are no hand-me-downs.  By mid-July, it will be orderly again.  In a time of life that is chaotic, I cling to my small bits of order to keep me afloat, and I'm craving mid-July.

Praying I can hold on that long!


PS  Adding to my nesting troubles is the fact that ever since the great tree issue, my neighbors haven't spoken to me.  The city announced that even if I wanted one they would not grant a permit to remove the trees, and now the neighbors studiously avoid looking in my direction.  Not sure what I'm going to do about this, but it does make it awkward when we're all in our yards!  I'm very glad to keep my trees - ah, looking up to admire them now - but not happy about continued neighbor drama, even of the stony silent variety.