Our Last February in This House Comes to an End?

There is a chance we could buy the house from our landlords, but probably won't know for another month. Meanwhile, the days keeping passing.

Our Last January in This House Comes to an End

 The holidays have passed, Andrew's college applications are submitted, and I feel like I'm entering an era of letting go (however reluctantly).

Our Last December in This House Comes to an End

Our Last November in This House Comes to an End

Val is home from college for one more day for the Thanksgiving break, so we are all here together. She will be back in less than two weeks, after finals. 

Andrew is working on college applications, which are due TOMORROW. He is applying for a performing arts major, which requires so many supplemental pieces. There are many due dates, then auditions in early winter. 

I feel...as I have often felt...like being in water, pushed and pulled this way and that. 

I am a little less sad, at the moment, about the impending move. It's going to be a ton of work, but after, it will be somewhat of a fresh start, in terms of organizing a house. I think, I hope.

November. It was really nice. We got a bunch of rain. I've been going to yoga again after 20+ years. My body is stiff and everything hurts. But I lost five pounds by taking better care of myself, so that's something. I survived cooking the Thanksgiving meal. 

I don't know how to not be sad about Thanksgiving. It has never been the same for me since my maternal grandfather died in 1992 and we stopped celebrating the holiday at his and my grandmother's home. It's just a place I can never return to. 

That's such the theme with me lately. I feel like the next big thing I need to figure out is how to live with all the different kinds of grief I'm experiencing and to also be content. I'm so busy and stressed right now, that it is just something I am aware of. 

I know I will have to return to creating art. I saw an artist speak years and years ago and she told us something like, "You've always known what you want to paint." It stuck with me, so I think it must be true.

Well, then. Goodbye, November. You were lovely. 

Photos

1. The river with seasonal footbridge

2. The river without seasonal footbridge

3. Our kitty in the window

3. The moon yesterday afternoon

Our Last October in This House Comes to an End

 

I love this time of year and I have been soaking it up. The golden light and the scent of the damp and leaves and woodsmoke outside is bliss. The acorns have been falling on the roof for the past week, plunk, plonk, tink!

I have lots of thoughts and I find myself vacillating between utter despair and optimistic hope about our move in eight months. In the bell curve of that spectrum is all my usual mid-life stuff, the day-to-day worries, memories, ruminations, epiphanies.

Anyway. I haven't handed out candy at Halloween in quite a while, and I thought it might be nice to tonight since we may not live in a place with trick-or-treaters next year. I love to see all the darling kiddos and wave to their parents--I remember. 

Happy and Safe Halloween to you, and peaceful Día de los Muertos tomorrow.

Our Last September in this House Comes to an End

It's such a relief when September comes around. The change in the slant of the sunlight, the earlier evenings, the turning of the leaves. I always look forward to the first day of fall.

I invited the neighbors over for an Autumnal Equinox Party one of our first years here. I had such aspirations about being involved in my community! I am still very good friends with a neighbor down the street. Her daughter just left for college. We used to go for walks together every day, the newborn daughter swaddled in her moby wrap, Valerie holding their dog's leash, me waddling with Andrew in my belly. And I have grown ever closer to our elderly neighbors over the years--the thought of moving away from them breaks my heart. They are my parents' age and it has been so reassuring having them next door.

September 23rd is my late beloved Grandma's birthday, so a special day for me (and my sister and cousins). I don't think I'd be who I am today if it weren't for her. So, I celebrate her memory and feel so very grateful.

I felt extra sad walking to the river yesterday morning. I chatted with another neighbor on the way back about house prices and flood insurance. I so wish this could have been our forever home. House prices have doubled since we moved here.

I am busy with work all week, and sometimes with Andrew's sports or music events. Then the weekend comes and I feel so much anxiety looking at all I have to do. I feel ashamed for having so much clutter. But then I remind myself that I haven't had much help all these years. Hubby works 50-60 hour weeks and we have no family close. And I've been working since 2015. 

And raising my kids in this quiet neighborhood in a little valley village, close to a river, and just inland from the sea. It's all that really matters.

(The photo is of a huge cactus patch down the street that bursts with brilliant ripening nopales this time of year.)

Our Last August in this House Comes to an End

August flew by, which isn't surprising because I went back to work on the 4th. Andrew started school on the 7th, and Val came home from her (incredible) summer internship on the 9th. 

It is not lost on me that this is, likely, the longest stretch of time we will all be together in this house again. If I weren't so busy, I'd be even more sad. Work has a way of occupying your time, and your mind. 

I didn't have a job when we moved here, besides caring for a two-year-old twenty-four, seven. I was so excited to be leaving the sprawl of unincorported San Diego for the quieter and cooler Central Coast. Hubby was going to be getting a nice paycheck, and I figured we'd buy a house within a few years. But that's hard to do when you don't have a down payment and prices keep going up.

So we stayed in our rental and celebrated holidays and milestones, taught the kids to ride bikes on our little street, sent them to elementary school up the hill, then six miles to middle school, twelve miles to high school. Val went to community college (seventeen miles)  and last year moved away to university (one hundred seventy-eight miles).

Now that it's Andrew's senior year, I have to pay extra attention to the school bulletin, and start attending PTO meetings again. There's a lot going on.

And the light is changing in our little neighborhood. The sun sets further west over the mountains, and a bit earlier. These seasonal changes always take me back to our first few years here, when everything still felt new. 

In another ten months, I'll be learning how to take these memories with me. I can't really imagine how that's going to be. To keep the panicky feelings at bay, I make sure to be present when the realization comes over me. 

That's exactly what prompted me to take the photo of our kitty looking out the window. It's my same view each morning while drinking my coffee and having some quiet time to myself before opening my laptop for work. I don't know what my window view will be in a year from now. I really like this one, and I think I'll miss it.