Closure

This weekend has been emotionally exhausting.

After work on Friday, I was so stinkin' tired. I came home from work at 6:45 and as soon as I set my belongings down and kicked off my high heels, it started pouring down rain. Glad the rain canceled the parish festival we were planning on visiting, I glanced at the bed and saw that Jack washed the sheets and had the bed made impeccably. I couldn't not take a short nap.

Three hours later, I got up and ate dinner!

Anyway, I worked for a while on Saturday and after vacillating between visiting SkyBlue and Lou, we eventually bit the bullet and drove back to SB in the afternoon so we could log some pool time.

It was HOT. Sizzling, blazingly hot. We jumped into a 87 degree pool. My folks ran to the store for BBQ fixin's and we literally spent the whole evening and night outside. We swam every hour or so after dinner, unless the lightning from the south scared us enough to actually drive us out of the pool. I think we went in around 1 a.m.

After brunch this morning, we logged a few more pool hours then decided we needed to hit the road. It's strange...I realized that I change if I stay in SB too long. Any more than 24 hours, and I start slipping into my old self. I can see myself living there, buying the for-sale house behind my folks' house (the one we talked about buying for years, before our plans changed), and being happy with the same ol' job, year after year. When 3 pm hit this afternoon, I realized I had to get out of there. Had Jack and I had babies and I was a stay-at-home mom, that would have been the perfect arrangement. As it is, we're living the opposite life.

So we left. I felt very bittersweet (more bitter!). Before we could drive back to the Chi, we had to stop at the old house and double-check everything before the next round of inspections start. Yes, we're under contract again, but I'm not doing anything to jinx it (including even mentioning that we have a closing date!). We had to reinstall a few smoke detectors (to placate FHA) and pick up huge sticks knocked down by the storms. Jack clicked the garage door opener and I dashed inside.

Walking into the empty kitchen, a wall of sadness hit me. I set my purse down and took in the empty expanse of dining room, living room, bedrooms, etc. I hadn't been in there since moving day, 5 weeks ago. The place smelled like drywall and plaster, but held up well without my TLC to keep it standing.

Jack was outside with the neighbors and I took my time wandering through the empty hallway, sunlight filtering through the western-facing windows. I then leaned against the wall in the living room, where the couch always sat. I envisioned the Easter dinners, birthdays, Memorial Day cookouts, and Christmases with family; the five house-bound weeks I spent in February '06, healing from that awful surgery; the dramatic lake-effect snowfalls where Jack and I would take turns shoveling; and all the nights I'd sit at the cafe table in the kitchen and watch Jack cook. I remembered the living room all decked-out in Christmas decorations; sitting in front of the fireplace on cold, dark winter nights; joking and laughing in the three-season "Caribbean" room on weekend nights; doing dishes while looking out the kitchen window, watching neighbor kids play; and doing 95% of my grad school homework at the dining room table.

It was our home. The place we returned to each evening, to share our fears, our dreams, our successes, and our laughter. Walking through the empty house felt like a dreamscape; while I lived there for seven years, it hit me in the gut that it's no longer capital-H Home. Neither is SB.

I never had those intense feelings of sadness and loss on moving day. I was too worried about orchestrating the move and our helping hands. But in going back today, just to install smoke detectors, I found myself grieving not only the house, but the move from SB, and the distance from our parents.

It seemed so easy to rip that proverbial band-aid off when I accepted the job in the Chi. I kept telling everyone to just be happy for me! But now that it's actually dawned on me that I no longer have ties to SB, I feel a bit homeless. I keep thinking of that empty house, merely a ghostly shell that intensifies my memories. WE made that house a Home and now we have to create a new Home.

I take extreme comfort and joy in one fact...Jack's here with me now in Chicagoland and neither one of us had to drive away tonight.