Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:56:45 -0700The second after I turned my pager off last Monday afternoon, my doorbell rang. The movers, half an hour early, worked around me as I wrapped the last of the glassware in recycled brown paper packaging, zip-tied shut the last few bins, and pointed out which stray items also needed to be loaded into their magic truck. (/mu.verz/ (n.): People who move your stuff for you. Why did I never hire them before? Oh right: because I couldn't, or didn't think I could.) I walked the five blocks down Church Street behind them, carrying a half-full bottle of wine, my laptop, and some spare laundry detergent. Past the people eating crepes on sidewalk tables and the bread-and-pastry shop; past the Market Street Railway Mural of the city's past, present, and future public transit just south of 15th Street that Matt explained to me the first night I met him, now so many years ago; past the middle school, and, following the J, down the hill to 18th. Arrived at my new home, already painted the grey-purple, sage-green, unicorns-pink, and sky-blue that TQ had helped me pick out at the paint store a few week before (thanks to whom I did not choose the wrong colors), and directed furniture placement in a daze: Couch there, please. Bed facing this way. Those boxes? Oh, anywhere. I made pasta that night with leftover pesto I'd tucked into the cardboard box of the contents of my fridge and carried down the hill, the eight minutes after emptying the package of noodles into salted, boiling water a sudden, frantic search for the box containing the colander. The house is a liminal mess right now, still awash in crumpled newsprint that hugged champagne flutes, in temporarily-placed bookshelves that seem to be growing roots, in various electrical cords and cables to nowhere and a gas pipe for the dryer that doesn't fit. But for every twinge I have of needing to not fuck this up, to do it right (to say nothing of the twinges when I notice a crack in the ceiling, or a loose bathroom tile, and realize those things are my problem now), there are three of affirmation. Life milestones come in hailstorms these days: Olivia & Charlie just gave birth to Audrey, and Chuck & Vinny to Marlaina; Flesché & Jacob are due in October. Elaine & David are getting married at the end of the month, Laura & Ted at the beginning of August, then Conall & Ciara. And I have a house. Relatedly, in the past month, I have asked out a boy I liked, turned one down who wasn't offering me what I wanted, and, yesterday, nipped a new fling at the bud -- promising, but no promises -- unwilling to walk a primrose path I've walked before. I'm too old for that shit, and it no longer makes sense to optimize for the short term. Adulthood: I'm feeling good about you. |