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.

This is really happening

When I had cancer, after the initial diagnosis I was required to have three surgeries (two large and one small) before I started chemo, and then I did two sessions of chemo before I started to really lose my hair, about two months after the initial diagosis.  I chose to get my head shaved, rather than having it come out bit by bit, leaving a trail around the house, because it completely unnerved me to touch my head and have a handful come out.

Being PollyAnna, I turned it into a bit of a party.  I got my closest friends to come, and my hair stylist hosted us at her salon early on a Saturday before it really opened.  I didn't want to see myself half shaved - I've never been a punk rocker - and so I faced away from the mirror, towards my friends, as she shaved me.

Finally, it was done, and they asked me if I was ready to see myself.  I took a deep breath, and they slowly turned my chair around to face the mirror.  The words that flew out of my mouth at that moment shocked me, because what I said, with tears streaming down my face, was, "I have cancer!"

I knew I had cancer.  I had plenty of proof that I had cancer already.  But there was just something about seeing my bald head that drove the point home in a whole new, painful way, and it was at that precise moment that I finally understood that this was really happening to me, that it was not a bad dream, that my life was forever changed.

I feel like the next stage of my divorce might be similar to that moment of seeing myself in the mirror.

After much resistance (a topic for another post), Bryan has finally agreed to go out and get an apartment on schedule for his July 1st move out date.  In so many ways, this makes me happy: when he's here, it is awkward in the extreme, and I never know if he's going to be nice or snap my head off with sharp words; I am always certain that he will leave a trail much worse than breadcrumbs that I will have to clean up.  But the biggest reason of all, is that it allows all of us to move forward, to start the next part of our lives rather than this really difficult living in limbo.

We have been exchanging lists of what to keep, what to give up.  We've got a plan for Katherine's room (and I need to go furniture shopping for a new bed for her).  We're divvying up the kitchen things, and I have a shopping list for that, too.

But despite the fact that for more than a year we've lived separately in this house, that we have had a child custody schedule of alternate weekends, that we are very open with friends and family about the divorce, that many life changes have taken place to move us closer to divorce (including my working outside the home, and him working out of state during the week)....I'm pretty sure that the day he moves out and there are spaces where his things used to be, it's going to be a bit of a shock.

I have no regrets about the decision to divorce.  I gave it everything I had, I played by the rules, and as hard as I tried, I couldn't make the marriage work.  If Bryan begged to have me back - a VERY unlikely scenerio - I would not be tempted, because I know that our marriage was not good for either of us.

But still, some days, it's hard to believe that this is happening, that this is really my life.  Sure, I'm a capable woman who is taking charge of her future....but this is scary stuff.  Sometimes I wonder how I'll make it through.

And I'm really dreading the moment that I look in the mirror in a half empty house, and see the face of divorce.

Note: I will address the parenting aspects of this major change in another post.  Tonight, that just feels like more than I can manage.  Katherine is doing great, but I am not a fool, and every time I think about the changes in her life I feel my heart breaking.




Does this make sense to anyone, or am I truly looney to feel this way?

What has made your divorce feel more real and tangible? 

Do you ever feel like this (divorce, or other difficulty) isn't really happening to you, that somehow this can not be your life?

Thank you, dear readers, for sharing your thoughts.