Well, I got my night out with Tracey last week! The problem with going weeks at a time without getting out on the town is that when we finally do, it takes four hours (or more accurately, four drinks) to blab about whatever needs to be blabbed about, and we both pay the price in the morning. The good thing is that her company is worth a few hours of lost sleep and always has been, and I couldn't be happier that our going out now (as opposed to six months ago) entails so much less planning and forethought. It's so much easier just to have the guys stay home with the kids and say, "I'll pick you up in 15 minutes."
Greg has jury duty today, which in discussion of the same last night led to our questioning if there's a "Because I'll go batshit insane" clause to excuse onesself from duty, and also led us to the conclusion that if Greg were ever incarcerated he would most definitely break out of jail/prison, not so much because he couldn't withstand the environment (which he could, at a cost), but because he would want to ensure that his insurance bill was paid on time, or because he simply HAS to go home and fold the laundry that's been sprawled all over the dining room table for three days. I love my anal boyfriend.
Emotional weekend. Drove to Rockford yesterday to pick up some furniture my mom is passing on to me now that she's moved in with her -- I just started to write "boyfriend" but it's actually -- fiance. I couldn't be more excited for her new life, but selling the house is bittersweet. Fve generations of my family have hung out or lived in that house. My grandparents have hidden Easter eggs on that lawn. My GREAT-grandparents have sat on the living room couch (brown, back then) and watched my sister and I open birthday gifts. All five Thorvalson children were brought home from the hospital to Montana Avenue. The selling of this house is hardest on Jen and I, and it's imperative for me right now that she and I go through this together. It's a welcome change, and a practical one, but definitely not easy. Our dad died five years ago and there we were just yesterday, sitting on the bar downstairs, trying to decide who's taking the Pabst Blue Ribbon sign and what the hell does one do with the bowling trophies of a deceased man, anyway? Sifting through a lifetime, still holding on to fragments. What to bring with us, what to leave behind. Coors cans from 1972? Discardable. But don't even think about throwing away the Pabst Can Man with the matchstick penis.
Jan and Bill are selling their house, Jan's childhood home. Everyone's moving on and going to the places that will be their final homes, their lives almost completed.
My mother is not going to be here forever.
Jan and Bill are not going to be here forever, even though it seems they already have been.
I will never see Jan and Bill's house on West Gate Parkway again.
It's been a good, long life. Days like today I almost wish mine were nearer to its end, just so I wouldn't have to go through all these upcoming years of not being able to show and never quite being able to express to my daughter what she missed. Then I realize that this house IS that house, for her. It's not the boxes we live in, it's the living we do in them. And I'll be damned if that house didn't see all of the best life - and death - have to offer.
I just wanna get to the part where we crack open the beers and pour libations. I love a good wake.
Off to organize my dowry now. Greg kept getting pissed at me last night for referring to the furniture as my dowry, until I explained to him that I don't mean it in the sense that my parent(s) are paying him to take me away. I mean that that oak table ain't goin' NOWHERE until we're dead, and I'm not going anywhere without that oak table, without him, without this life, without these sticks and bones and reincarnations.
Yeah, I'll take that beer now.
Posted by stephanie at April 3, 2006 08:20 AM