Queen of Swords

The Move is officially complete -- except for emptying the boxes and getting everything arranged. Thank goodness! This has been the most grueling move of my life.

Panic set in yesterday as I realized that we really did need the two bookshelves Wolfling said she didn't want anymore, and that the movers had left behind a file cabinet and two big boxes of books in my office closet. The Ex had volunteered to bring his truck over to move the dining room set to unicorndelamer's house, but I was worried about scheduling complications. And the furniture that was going to charity was far too big for Dad's truck. So I had a lot of bulky, heavy furniture sitting in the old house needing to get to various other places by nightfall.

So I rented a U-Haul, and that saved the day.

Also saving the day were half a dozen unexpected knights. We were contemplating the challenges of moving the very large and heavy tabletop down the six concrete stairs to unicorndelamer's place, when she suddenly announced she was going for help. She approached the two strong twenty-something males that were in the parking lot and asked them if they would assist. They cheerfully came over, picked up the table and took it in -- without breaking a sweat.

I took her example to heart and did the same thing later that afternoon. One of my young male neighbors was happy to lift the file cabinet back into Dad's truck, and later another neighbor and his two Mormon missionary friends ran the bookshelves and the file cabinet up to the third floor. The missionaries were wearing their uniform: black slacks, white dress shirts, and nametags, and were quite sweet. They gave me their contact info -- stapled to a pamphlet about Jesus -- and invited me to call them if I needed assistance in the future. They shrugged off my dad's question about listening to their message with an "if it comes up" and seemed surprisingly low-key about it. Without all of their help, my family would have been in a real lurch, and probably would have had to wait until the Ex came to pick up Wolfling this Friday to be able to get those last pieces up to the apartment.

The two flights of stairs is worth the view, however. I love the view, love the privacy which I haven't had in a very long time. Wolfling is spending a lot of time on the spacious balcony (and is out there right now talking with a friend on the phone).

We still have a lot of boxes to go through -- especially Wolfling, but it's going to be nice here.

Not sure if I'll be able to catch up on four days of only glancing at LJ on my phone. Please let me know if I've missed anything important and/or juicy. ;-)

One of the reasons my house feels wonderful is the simple aftermath of a good, thorough cleaning. Even though I didn't get the stairs vaccuumed, or all the books off the stairway (most are up!) the clutter is out, my main space was vaccuumed, my dining room table was cleared off, the downstairs bathroom scrubbed -- and there's a lightness and expansiveness to the place that had gotten lost over the past few weeks of Christmas packaging, recyling building up, and general clutter.

The other aspect is that last night it was blessed with the wonderful energies of four old friends: a_belletrist and three ladies from the old WIT group, who came over for divination and conversation. There turned out to be rather more conversation and less divination, but all of it turned out to be fun and loving and powerful.

None of them had visited this residence before, so I had the fun of giving them the grand tour.

Instead of doing tarot readings for each other, which is the usual practice for those gatherings, one of my friends did intuitive readings for the rest of us -- and those were very powerful and on-point. The one she gave me didn't give me information that was particularly new, but vividly confirmed and deepened an awareness I already have. The imagery of her "painting" is going to stay with me for a long time.

Towards the end of the evening, I did a tarot reading for her. At first I was sure I was getting a "busy signal from the universe" because the way the cards wanted to be laid out was utterly different from anything I've done before, and I didn't have any idea what the meanings were or how it all fit together until I felt the "enough" impulse after the fifth card and sat back to look at the pattern as a whole. Then the information and insight started flowing -- including a somewhat non-standard reading for the Fool card, but one which really felt right.

A little after 10pm the WIT ladies left and I asked a_belletrist if she could stay for a while. We ended up talking until around 12:30, and it was quite wonderful. She and I haven't been able to get together nearly as often as we'd like.

I feel like both my home and I were beautifully blessed last night.

I don't think I'm going to be moving my computer downstairs again.

Not for more than bits of time, anyway.

This is far too pleasant to go back to a niche in "public" space that suddenly feels far too much like a cubicle.

Aside from escaping the pool noise, the other big reason I was delighted to move into this townhouse was that it has three bedrooms -- or two bedrooms and an office. However, in the almost one year that I've lived here I haven't really used the office.

Today, however, the snow is coming down thick and fast, the schools are closed, MyCo is open, and I have a refugee sleeping on my couch. I've moved both my personal and work laptops to the office, dragged my office chair upstairs, and am now enjoying the novel sensation of actually working at the lovely desk that's been sitting there functioning as a horizontal space catch-all.

I'm not enthused about any of the work I have to do today, but I'm feeling good about this space -- which should help my overall mood considerably.

A friend just wrote to me, I am still figuring out what home means. It got me thinking.

When I was growing up, "home" meant several things: the place I was from, the security of my family, the safe place where my stuff was. I was fortunate to be raised in an atmosphere where home truly was a safe place, on all levels. Leaving home was something that I looked forward to, but turned out to be a bigger challenge than I'd expected, since I'd always taken my safety and belonging for granted.

Now. . . "home" still has multiple meanings, some emotional, some practical.

First and foremost, home is where I live, where my stuff is. Home is also where I have a significant degree of control over my environment. If all my stuff was in a house where someone else had too much influence for my comfort, it would not be Home, it would just be where I was living. This was actually something of a tension during my marriage, since I didn't have the degree of control over my environment that I wanted, and I often didn't like my husband's stuff or how he wanted to control (or not control) our boundaries. The only space I felt was truly mine was my office, which was too small. But it was mine.

I'm territorial and I like my privacy. It makes cohabitating with another grown-up problematic.

But that said. . . The Old Place felt more like Home when L&L were with me as partners. They lived somewhere else, but there was something about the partnership energy they brought to my residence, the family chemistry that developed, that made the place more home-like. And, as I wrote to my friend earlier today, my new place is far more beautiful and comfortable than the old one, but without my partners here, even on a part-time basis, it feels less like Home.

My Home is my castle. It's my safe place, my sanctuary. It's where I am sovereign. It's where my best beloveds are with me.

I am keenly aware that I haven't written anything about Wolfling so far. I've found that she transcends Home. She is my blood and family in a way no one else is. The house is emptier when she's not here, feels lonely. . . but it doesn't impact the overall Home-ness of the place. I don't understand it, but that's the way it is.

The weather has turned cooler, and so it's much quieter at The New Place. No late parties in the pool last night, so I was able to get to sleep on time, but still woke up exhausted and with an upset stomach -- so I decided to take my bosses at their word and called in sick saying I needed to stay home and take care of myself today. The pool has remained deserted.

My daughter is suddenly turning into a teenager, with music playing all the time, sometimes country, sometimes what she calls "techno" -- and I realize that I am now officially part of the Older Generation, since the latter is seldom anything I want to listen to. She's taken to spending time in her room, door closed, with her new laptop, listening to music -- and writing. She's keeping her own journal and she's writing a story, or at least started to. I was in her room a few days ago and found a crumpled piece of paper on the floor. Deciding to help her be tidy, I picked it up, then uncrumpled it and read it. I was startled by the vivid words on the page as she made a first (obviously unsatisfactory in her own eyes) attempt to tell her tale.

It may have been one my most quietly exciting moments as a mother, this realization that my daughter, unlike me in so many ways, is starting to write down the stories in her mind. I tucked the wrinkled piece of paper away in one of my drawers. Who knows how long it will be before she actively shares her writing with me? I never shared mine with my own mother.

She's in her room with the door closed and her music playing, and rather than ask her to turn it down even lower I've moved from the built-in desk opposite her door into my room and onto my gorgeous bed and am taking advantage of the new wireless router I installed today.

I'm enjoying just hanging out on my bed for the first time since I moved in with my Ex-husband. I have a nice headboard to lean against, a large comfy mattress, and lots of light. Once again my bedroom is a private, comfortable haven. (I tried to make it one in the last house, but for years I shared it with the Daughter, and then the ruined floor, poor lighting and clutter made it strictly utilitarian.)

Even with the pool noise and the heat of upstairs, I am loving The New Place. It feels so good to be truly comfortable in my own home, to have room to breathe. Some days I just sit on my couch and look around the room and sigh with pleasure.

It's going to take a while to get my head around this: I *don't* live in the basement anymore!

I have big windows! *Lots* of them!

And then there's the tub: deep, oval, with a curved edge, wide shelves. . .

And carpeting.

And a dishwasher.
A *dishwasher*!

*happy sigh

My new bedroom overlooks the swimming pool.

Fortunately, the windows are double-paned, and when I was there today I couldn't hear any noise coming up, even though the pool was full of people having fun.

I shall have to re-learn how to have fun in a swimming pool.

I was up until about 12:15 last night, quietly doing this and that until I felt ready to sleep: journaling here and on paper, playing with The Faeries Oracle, buying and rating music from iTunes, playing Bejeweled, just letting myself unwind. My daughter was at a slumber party and the New Upstairs Folks are generally quiet, so the environment around me was peaceful. I didn't feel like I was needing to defend myself from repeated demands and interruptions and stress. When I finally did go to bed, I didn't do my formal meditation, but did enjoy some low-key 'tuning-in' and alignment with my beloved. My dreams were a bit weird, but not nightmarish, nor did they seem particularly significant. I woke this morning around 6am feeling rested and peaceful and more centered than I have in weeks.

Today is the beginning of the end of my time in this house. I can still remember coming here with the realtor the first time. It was the first house my Ex and I looked at. When we walked in upstairs, he was excited. When we came downstairs, and I walked into the long living room with the fireplace and built in bookshelves, I was enchanted. This was my cave. I belonged here.

That, of course, was before the flooding ruined my carpets, my not-very-successful home improvement projects left me with crooked bathroom tiles and half-painted rooms, and all the other dramas which this place -- and the Ex's penchant for adopting 'sick raccoons' -- eventually brought me. And it's those dramas that have motivated me to move. I'm a bit wistful about leaving my home of six years -- although I am looking forward to living above ground and having lots of sunlight again. I'm looking forward to having a beautiful space where I can start fresh.

A few months ago, I asked a_belletrist to do a tarot reading for me on the prerennial question of getting momentum around my spiritual direction practice. The bottom line of the reading was this: Continue to be patient. Don't push. There is still major change coming that you need to get through before you worry about that. Well, that's certainly been the case.

There have been several days since uncrowned_king's death when I've struggled with profound depression. I've never been one to build my life or my personal worth around a man, but there were days when I truly felt that with him dead, there simply wasn't anything worth living for, except my daughter, and the only feeling I could muster for her was duty. A couple of days were especially bad, and I wished that I could simply opt out of this life altogether. I never actually tipped over into suicidal; I recognized the grief for what it was, talked to friends (especially oakmouse) to get my perspective back, held on to my love for my daughter (which was always there, even when I wasn't actively feeling it), and got through.

This morning, I feel life is worth living again, and I have the courage and emotional resilience to face the challenges to come. I'm still too overwhelmed with the magnitude of the changes (and the amount of packing yet to be done today!) to be actively excited about tomorrow's move -- that would take far too much emotional energy -- but I'm quietly happy and optimistic that this new chapter of my life is going to be a good one.

When I took Friday off to attend my daughter's graduation and pick her up early from school, I fully intended to use the four hours between those two events to work on stuff for my day job. That didn't happen. I got a much-needed rest, but I also jeopordized the commitments I'd made to get this stuff sent in before Monday, so I need to do take care of them today.

I should also get out of the house and walk, not just because I really need to get back to training for the 3-Day, but because some fresh air and exercise will be very helpful in my current emotional state.

So here's the To-Do list for the day:

1. Type notes for MH's meeting
2. Type notes for JT's meeting
3. Walk
4. Review the Flat Fee Engagement form the lawyer sent me so we can proceed with the quit claim form to get me off the title of the house
5. Dig out my copy of the dissolution agreement (divorce paperwork) to fax to the lawyer, since that's what's governing the house buy-out
6. Figure out how to get a copy of the title to the lawyer
7. Get a copy of my paystub and email it to RR to finish my income verification
8. Call RR with my new electricity account number so they can release my keys
9. Sort and pack books
10. Sort papers

ETA: 11. Pay bills