Tag: moving

decompression

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I think I may be decompressing (or falling apart) after an incredibly busy and stressful summer. Now that I am healthy more than I am sick, I chose to cash in on my home and simplify my life. Sounds good, right? Well, I know moving. I have moved forty times in my life (this was my fortieth) and bought and sold seven houses. This was my eighth purchase, so I know the process. This was the most difficult move I have ever made, for several reasons. First, I radically downsized. Although I was more than ready to do so, it is a long, difficult process, even for someone who regularly goes through and gets rid of stuff, like me. Second, the market in Denver is absolutely off the hook. Selling a house is easy-peasy. Buying a house? Extremely difficult. Third, and the most challenging, this move represented moving on with life into the unknown.

Downsizing is an emotional journey whether you want to do it or not, especially after forty+ years of acquiring things. If I’ve done it right, I won’t miss anything that I let go. So far, so good. I do feel much lighter. The possessions were literal baggage; relics of a former life that is gone. What surprised me was how difficult getting rid of possessions are post-COVID. No one wants anything now. It took one estate sales, two donation pick-ups, and a listing for “free stuff” on NextDoor, and one junk pick-up to get rid of everything we wanted.

Buying a townhome was just as stressful as getting rid of things. We put bids on three properties before we found “the one.” After all the drama with selling and downsizing, once our bid was accepted, that part was surprisingly easy. They even moved up the move date by almost three weeks, a welcome event, because we were living in a stripped-down work site. Oh, did I mention I had to do a nearly $20k repair for the sale of the house? Well, I did, and that was a HUGE hassle. In the end, Katie and I purchased a townhome together. I’ll be there part-time, so it is definitely more “hers” than mine, despite the hefty down payment I made. She is extremely happy to have a mortgage and an asset. I’m extremely happy I don’t have to worry about a big house and yard when I am not there.  And yet, I am having trouble letting go of the fact that I am mistress of no home right now, but more of a guest, both in Dad’s house and now Katie’s. It’s a strange feeling, despite how generous they are. Neither mind letting me take over the kitchens while I’m there. I have my own spaces in both homes. And yet I struggle, even though it is what I wanted. 

The third point is the stickler right now. Wanting to be unencumbered and being unencumbered are two different states. Perhaps it is becauseI haven’t had enough time (really, since 2013) to work through all the major changes in my life. Divorce, graduate school, and Lyme, one after the other, in quick succession. Caveat: if you who think being sick is “downtime”, I know you’ve never been seriously ill for any length of time. As I’ve said before, being sick for long periods of time is a really shitty job. It’s hard, hard, work, and when you’re not sick, you’re frantically playing catch up. That was part of the reason I have voluntarily set myself adrift. The less I have on my plate means less catching up.

Without that ceaseless cycle to occupy me, I’m left to decompress. The first week back in Tucson was filled with getting Rocky and myself settled, and taking care of things around the house for Dad. The second week I got myself caught up with all the online minutiae of changing addresses, getting finances in order, and establishing a schedule. That only takes up so much time.

People, I’m here to tell you that decompressing and having the time to process huge life changes absolutely blows

Humans will do almost anything to avoid their own emotions of sorrow, rage, and regret and I am no exception. I don’t want to think about all the things I’ve dealt with. I find myself flitting from what I should be doing to mindless doom-scrolling and game-playing. At what point do I declare an end to decompressing and begin thriving again? I know what my therapist would say: there is no timeline for this journey. He would say I need to recognize that I have been through over six long years of being more sick than well. He would tell me I need to be kind to myself and relearn how to manage my energy and my life.

But for now, it means flitting from task to task, never quite able to fully concentrate on anything. It means struggling to give myself permission to do things just for me that aren’t related to getting better or surviving. I have to figure out where the line between self-indulgence and self-care is.

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the future

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I’m at an age where I’m thinking hard about what I want out of the backend of my life. Moving has only heightened the scrutiny, and the process is not one that lends itself to definitive answers. For some people that isn’t the case. They will stay where they are, basking in post-retirement bliss in a home they’ve paid off with kids and grandkids (and some with great-grandkids!)all living nearby. That’s supposed to be the dream, right? Not for all of us.

Dreams have a way of changing, or at least mine have. There was a time in my life where that sounded pretty good to me. I think it changed when Katie was twelve or thirteen. I’m not sure why, other than I was unhappily married with a daughter who adamantly insisted she was never going to have kids. At the time, I thought it was all a phase. Still, the seeds of change had been planted. As the years went on, I got divorced. Katie never changed from not wanting kids. I went to graduate school for writing (a big change in and of itself) and I got Lyme disease.

All future thought was on hold at my sickest. For six years, I thought of nothing beyond surviving through another year. Now that I am definitely “stable” (meaning  a random pattern of wellness punctuated by relapses), I think about the future. What do I want to do with myself? I made a list:

  • Torture my dad with my presence for his remaining years (who am I kidding? Dad an Keith Richards will be here long after I’m gone. They’ll dance on my grave.).
  • Take care of myself. This includes having the time/energy to work out, cook, go to movies, have adventures with friends. It also includes lots of down time to relapse without feeling guilty.
  • Travel. I want the time and money to go see friends, to travel to Paris, or Palm Springs, or wherever to watch tennis, and to go and see the world. I may even spend time living in one of the places  part time.
  • Have a home base in Denver with Katie.
  • Write, write, write.

I suppose I’ll do all of this as long as I can and see where I end up. Ultimately, I’ll end up dead, of course, but that shouldn’t keep me from planning the future. If the present is any indication, I’ll be with Katie permanently at some point, subject to being “taken care of” by my daughter. As long as I don’t kick up too much of a fuss, I should be good there.

Some people might be shaking their heads at the things on my list, or the inclusion of Katie in my future. I’ve long given up on what people think of my relationship with Katie. I’ve pretty much given up on what people think of my choices in general. But the stuff with Katie goes waaaaay back. She established her “difficult child” bona fides by the age of three. I got plenty of advice over the years on how to deal with her, mostly from people who didn’t have a child like Katie. Don’t ask me how or why some of us end up with children who can’t or won’t conform to what an ideal child should be. A child who doesn’t care about pleasing you, or is simply different. Rather, ask me what to do about it, because unconventional children require unconventional answers. At her worst, I worried if she would want to live. At that point, making her to do dishes or go to school seemed pointless. My decision to let go of all those preconceived “shoulds” and “ought tos” ultimately proved to be right for us.

I still didn’t trust my intuition about other decisions, even though I knew deep in my bones that I was doing the right things with Katie.  We joke about our entwined futures, but neither of us envision future plans without each other in some form or fashion. For us, the immediate future holds a flip: I’ll be the one coming and going and making the home will fall on her shoulders. My gut tells me this is exactly what I need—what we both need—but I’m still settling into this decision.

Really, it wasn’t until Lyme that I have learned that I DO know what is right for me and sometimes those around me, often before I’ve weighed all the pros and cons. Interesting, isn’t it, that it took serious illness that completely shook me to my core to realize that.

Knowing intuitively what is best for me and actually doing it are different things. Nothing about planning a future is easy, even when you’re older. The process of stripping my life down to the essentials induces something akin to pure panic sometimes. Letting go of anchors like possessions and places may leave me feeling unmoored, adrift in a new sea that has tides and waves I’m not ready for. However, it is better than being anchored by those same things, firmly grounded where I don’t want to be, held down by them instead of freed. It’s time to let go and trust that I am more than things, and that Katie is perfectly capable and more than ready to create a home that also has a place for me, just as I have done for her.

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restless

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I’ve moved enough times that there is a rhythm to each move. There’s the relief of deciding to sell the home and move. Then the flurry of activity necessary to get the house ready for selling. I had a head start on this house, because before COVID I had considered selling and got rid of a bunch of stuff. That was a great help. After that, there is the wait for someone to buy.

That’s where the rhythm sped up. I’ve never sold a home in a market like this one. It sold in three days. We only had one bid but it was the right one. Our realtor wisely negotiated for a sixty day close and an additional sixty day leaseback. Because the corollary for a hot seller’s market is a tough buyer’s market.

I really like our realtor. I hav known him for seven or eight years through swimming. He is a good swimmer, and I either swam a few lanes over in a slower lane or was lifeguarding while he swam. Showing up at a pool at 5 am, sleep tousled and in a bathing suit to voluntarily swim a few miles tells me a lot about a person. That’s how I knew he was a realtor, and it’s also how I knew I could trust him to be reliable and trustworthy.

I think it takes a certain type of personality to be a great realtor. You’re not so much as selling something as guiding someone through one of the most purchases most of us ever make. You have to get to know what the person wants, yet make it clear what they can have. You have to explain strategies and pitfalls and advantages and all sorts of terms. My daughter is a virgin home buyer, so a large part of our realtor’s job is to explain the whole process to her. Our realtor is pathologically cheerful and patient, and has done all of the above, and more.

So we have a contract. I’m working on all the problems of making repairs, which is always a hassle and has its own peculiar rhythm. In fact, everything about a move is a “hurry up and wait” kind of motion. Some days are spent worrying if you’ve done the right thing and other days are seemingly consumed in a flash with phone calls, appointments, and paperwork. If I add watching the Olympics or writing into the mix, it makes getting anything else done extremely difficult.

What I’ve discovered about myself is that I can no longer juggle multiple things and push through a hectic day without paying the price. I lose my train of thought on one thing when I’m interrupted and can’t get back on track. I fall asleep at eight pm and sleep until six but I don’t feel rested. What level of stress can I handle now? I guess I won’t know until I’ve tested the limits, and this move is proving to be the perfect situation.

I miss the rush of having a jam-packed day of chaos and knowing that I dealt with all of it. Katie and I were talking about the time she went back to her second semester of school in January 2005 and discovered that Pikes Peak Community College had a Zookeeping degree program. This was what she had been looking for. She withdrew from Mesa State, I came and got her, we drove to Colorado Springs, enrolled her in the program, found an apartment and moved her all within three days. I doubt I could do that now.

When we moved to this house I got the house in Evergreen ready between December twentieth and January fifth. Katie and I packed over 85 boxes. I also found a new house all before I left for Bennington, VT on January thirteenth for my first term of graduate school. I was still negotiating the contract on the shuttle bus from Albany to Bennington. When I returned ten days later, I had seven days to finish packing, close on both houses, hire movers, and move in February second. I know I couldn’t do that now.

This move is dragging out, though, because of the craziness of the market. I have started thinking about packing, but it’s too soon. Besides, I am getting rid of at least half of my stuff, maybe more. But that depends on where we move and how much space I will have and how much space Katie will have. Because this will be primarily her space, not mine. I’ll be a co-owner but not here for the day-to-day living. I’ll be in Tucson for a while, then I’ll be all over the place, I hope. Eventually I hope to live somewhere outside of the US for six months each year and travel to see friends/tennis tournaments/for pleasure for weeks at a time. It’s funny, that doesn’t seem daunting at all. Because I will have total control of my travel times, recovery times, and when I come and go. I won’t have to clean the house, or do yard work, or deal with all the everyday things that sap my energy.

The end result of all the chaos of downsizing my world will be worth it, though. A much smaller property which means much less upkeep. I’ll have a co-owner I can trust who happens to be my daughter. She is thrilled to finally be a property owner. A smaller payment, which means more money for living. And lastly, a great shedding of things from a former life. Time will tell if that will be liberating.

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moving

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I can always tell when I’m fighting an infection now. Babesia, a malaria-like protozoan parasite co-infection that hasn’t been in the picture for over two years (maybe more, I can’t keep all this shit straight) has returned. It’s probably due to an overload of stress and activity. I’m selling my house and down-sizing. I made the decision, traveled to Denver, prepared the house, and sold it all in three weeks. Fortunately, I have plenty of experience in this area. I’ve moved 39 times (give or take a few hasty moves in my college years) both as a child and as an adult. When I was married, I was the one who did all the legwork to prepare the house for selling and moving. As a child, I watched my mom do the same thing. She was highly organized and I don’t recall any trauma from a poorly thought out move. So I scrubbed, cleaned, packed some things up, and made the house look like someone would like to live there.

Houses are selling in less than a weekend in Denver at considerably more than the asking price. I don’t know when I’ll ever see a stronger seller’s market for houses in my price category again. It was no surprise when we had an offer Monday morning after the first weekend.

All that activity wore me down and that’s what babesia was waiting for.  This is part of the reason I’m downsizing in the first place. The more stress I can eliminate from my life the more I can control relapses (I hope!). There was no sneaking up with this infection. It barreled in back in early June and it is raging right now, in spite of being on medication. And babesia has a unique set of symptoms: my eyes ache, itch, water, and blur, my teeth hurt deep in my jaws, I have a sharp headache constantly, I break out in sweats, my muscles ache, and my brain gets anxious and angry. I know, you’re thinking it sounds a lot like my other co-infection symptoms, and you’d be right. It’s the nature of the symptoms that is different. I could write pages on the differences, but I’d bore both myself and you. Let’s just say you know it when you feel it.

At any rate, the end result is a body in combat. I sleep a LOT, like ten or more hours a day. This Sunday I couldn’t stay up for the entire Wimbledon Men’s Championship match. Bear in mind, this was 10:30 am. I’d been up for four hours. In my defense, I detest Novak Djokovic, so not seeing him play isn’t exactly a hardship. It’s just frustrating to bow down to my body’s needs instead of doing what I want. I slept until a little after twelve and when I woke up, Djokovic had won. Yuck. I don’t like him. I find his whiny arrogance combined with his neediness that tennis fans adore him off-putting. I didn’t had the energy to do much else. It is one of the truths of chronic Lyme that it takes a tremendous amount of energy to fight off active infections, especially a parasitic one that feasts on red blood cells, like babesia. 

The other sign my body is working overtime is my appetite. I am constantly hungry. Not junk food kind of hunger, but a deep urge to eat nourishing foods. I crave fruit, protein, vegetables, and fats. I give in to the cravings because I think my body knows what it needs when it’s laboring like this. Today it was leftover grits and fried catfish with some eggs on top for breakfast. Lunch was a big salad and sardines (go ahead haters, sardines are delish). I had popcorn for a snack and dinner was a baked sweet potato and steak. I’m still hungry. But I’m full. It’s annoying. What isn’t annoying is that I don’t gain a pound while this is happening.

So, I’m sleeping and eating or thinking about both most of the time right now. It’s a strange activity, fighting infections. I don’t necessarily feel ‘sick’. I feel like a bear must feel at the onset of hibernation. Grumpy and eating and eating for the long winter and becoming increasingly sleepy. If I don’t have anything else to do it’s not bad. I basically plan meals, cook, and lounge around waiting for sleep to overtake me. But I don’t get too much else done. I can only hope that allowing my body the rest and nourishment that it needs will get me back on track soon, because I have a lot to do in the next few month. I have to find another place to live, pack, and get rid of a bunch of stuff. I have to line up movers and a service to sell all the things we don’t want. I’ll have to sign a bazillion pieces of paper in order to sell and buy a place. I can’t say the process will be enjoyable. I can say moving is one of my life skills that has proven to be incredibly handy. I’ll do what I always do: forge ahead and remind myself daily that when it is over, I’ll be in a better place, physically, mentally, and financially.

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resettling

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I railroaded my dad into letting me move in with him this past September. It seemed like a good time with COVID and lockdowns and my continued journey with chronic Lyme. The original plan was to sell my house, move in with dad for a while, and later on, move to Costa Rica. Then came COVID and a radical change in plans. I kept my house. Katie is living there and taking care of everything. Keeping the house  was more of an emotional decision than purely financial. It didn’t  (and still doesn’t) seem like a good time to take risks.

Isolation was wearing on everybody by this point. I had stopped writing, unable to draw on any of the emotional and mental strength writing requires. I was sick of Lyme, sick of COVID, sick of myself. There was no life-guarding or teaching swim lessons.. Airbnb had ground to a halt. Strangely, none of these things particularly bothered me. Trying to help dad solve his everyday problems with his computer, or his phone, or some mail he received, that bothered me.

It would have been about time to go for a visit without COVID. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I should be down there for a much longer stretch of time. Not anything concrete or pressing, just a feeling that we could, and should help each other through this time.

My best friend Laura ( I can say that, right, Laura?) needed a break from sheltering with the four males in her household and offered to drive me down to Tucson. We set out the day after a freak September snowstorm and arrived in Tucson late in the afternoon the next day for my 14 day quarantine. Our first place was a tiny condo across the street from dad with NO WIFI. I cannot stress this enough. NO WIFI. We got another place and saw my dad every night outside with masks on.

I moved in the house on the 15th day. Dad had cleaned and moved his office out of the room next to my bedroom. This visit was very different from earlier ones. We were going to co-exist for a long time. I truly appreciate his willingness to turn over parts of his house to me, allowing me to make them functional for myself. There was another person in the house, though. My mom has been gone for ten years. Most everything has been left the way she liked it. I helped dad go through a LOT of her things after she died, and we got rid of the things that accumulate in illness and old age: blankets, medical equipment, assorted kitchen things that haven’t been used in years, and knickknacks that must have meant something to someone at some time. We never really moved any of the furniture., though Dad had moved a few items out of his bedroom and rearranged the den and his office, but that was it.

This was more cataclysmic. My mom was precise. Not house proud, exactly. Everything had it’s place for both aesthetic and utilitarian purposes and it was to be kept like that. I felt like I was thirteen again, rearranging my room late at night, knowing mom would not be thrilled.

The kitchen was where I started first. Dad, like many widowers, had adapted to a simple kitchen routine: coffee, OJ, English muffin and sausage for breakfast, granola and milk or a sandwich for lunch, and either crackers, cheese and fruit or a frozen dinner for dessert. He used few of the many things in the kitchen. I started small, rearranging the pots and pans and cleaning out the pantry. Then I forged ahead and went through the cabinets. So many mysteries! Why were  there so many mismatched storage containers and lids? Why did we have three candy thermometers? And the biggest mystery of all, why did we keep spices from at least the 90s?

There must have been about thirty containers. I took a photo of some of them. Note the labels and prices. When was the last time you saw any spice for .57¢?

After I cleaned out the spices, I found it easier to change things in the house. I’ve rearranged my bedroom and office. I’ve added plants. The pantry and the fridge are well-stocked, just the way I like it.

We do pretty well, all things considered. Dad’s small retirement community has been and is very isolated, the threat of COVID moving through the community a powerful impetus to not gather or go out. Zoom classes don’t come close to filling that gap. Sometimes, like in my Spanish class, it highlights the differences in how people act during COVID. The three people under thirty have done the bare minimum in terms of isolating and social distancing. They talk about their travels and adventures while the three of us over sixty listen. We don’t do much at all, except go to parks or drive to pick up groceries, or go to appointments that can’t be avoided.

Sometimes I get frustrated when I see how differently people act during the pandemic. I can’t work up too much anger, though. I would probably do the same if this happened when I were much younger. It seems to me that it’s easier to hunker down at home and keep busy when you’re older.

At any rate, I can’t control what other people do. I can only control me. So I write, read, hike (a LOT), cook, clean, and keep trying to learn Spanish. I get depressed, I have relapses. I try not to think about when everybody else goes back to normal and I’ll still have Lyme to deal with. I think about letting go of the illusion of control to gain control, a futile, koan-like pursuit that so far, has not given me any intuitive enlightenment or tranquility.

I have done everything that I can do to protect myself and Dad from COVID and from the crushing loneliness self-isolation brings. Next week the Australian Open begins and we’ll watch tennis together, something we’ve both missed far more than I would have thought pre-COVID. We’ll continue to do our best to get along. I’ll ponder the fact that I have become my mother about many things. And then I will return to what I’ve learned best in the last six years with Lyme: the full-time business of coping.

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body

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I like my body. I’ve never quite trusted it, because it was broken when I was seven. I fell out of a tree and fractured my skull. I was in a coma for about a week. It’s funny what you remember about hospital stays, especially when you’re young. I definitely remember the nurses coming in and taking my temperature (they did it anally back then, HELLO!). I I remember the doctor’s name: Dr. Fountain. I remember him sitting by my bed with his watch, asking if I heard the ticking. I don’t remember that my answer fazed me one way or another. At seven, one accepts change easily. I remember my Nanny gave me a Snoopy stuffed animal with a built in radio. We listened to a baseball game together in my hospital room. I went home to a new house, because I managed to fall on a Sunday afternoon at my dad’s new bosses’ house during a relocation.

The whole year after my fall is a large chalkboard with four or five sentences, the rest erased completely. My brothers found a live bat in the yard. My dad held its quivering body in a towel wrinkled by its tiny claws. I had daily headaches and dizzy spells. I practiced on our new grand piano in the new living room. The house was a modern, open ranch with tile floors. I loved to bang out loud, lively pieces. The notes hung in the air and crashed throughout the house. That was power.

The next insult to my body was deeply personal, another kind of power wielded by my brother without my consent. I have never and will never forgive him.

I had a partially detached retina when I was 17. The surgery was routine. However, my horrified parents got to listen to me hit on the poor orderly while I was high on some magical pre-surgery drug. Afterwards, I was rolled into a storage room with a rubber glove filled with ice over my eye. I must have been considered a low risk patient. After that I had many minor and major surgeries, all having to do with my faulty lady parts. That’s all I need to say about that. All told, I’ve had eleven surgeries; four major and seven minor. Great preparation for Lyme.

My mother was a functioning anorexic for most of my life. At the end, she became a non-functioning anorexic, and it killed her. She was 59 lbs when she died. One of the gifts she gave me was a healthy body image. Whether she did it on purpose or not, I am grateful. She taught me that my brains and personality would last far longer than sex appeal. She taught me that a strong, healthy body was the most important thing. These lessons didn’t sink in as easily as I make them sound. I went through a dork phase that was epic (pixie cut, blue granny glasses and braces for buck teeth). I fretted over my looks like most young women. To this day I think my head looks like a potato in pictures. My boobs weren’t big enough. My legs were too skinny. I rarely dieted, however, and always exercised. I abused my body with drugs and alcohol and had lots of sex. But I never quite trusted that I was indestructible.

By the time Lyme hit, I had lots of experience in dealing with physical setbacks, or, let’s be honest, the problems that can happen if you’re female. Endometriosis, ovarian cysts and scar tissue wreaked havoc inside of me for years. It was a relief to have everything taken out. I developed an allergy to morphine and food sensitivities. Lyme was no walk in the park, far from it, but I had experience. I am tough as nails at enduring. I consider my body ‘temporarily offline’ right now, as it has done off and on throughout my life. I’m babying it along, taking special care with diet and rest.

On my worst days, I hate my body, both in appearance (I’m starting to bear a startling resemblance to Mr. Peanut) and performance (another day of aches and fatigue). I tried positive imagery, imagining the billions of little spirochetes, bacteria(s?), and protozoans dying and being swept out of my body. What I usually got was gross negative imagery, of squiggly microscopic creatures burrowing in my brain and eyeballs, teeth and joints, heart and liver. This was a new kind of battle for my body, unlike any other I had endured. I’m almost well now, and my body is the last to know it. I tell my body every day that I am better, I should feel better. So far, the body does what it wants. I still like it though, it’s the only one I’ve got.

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