Instead I’ve been lying awake at night worrying. Why? Because in a matter of a month, life has gone bananas. Big, rhinoceros's penis-sized bananas!
First, my mother Linda put her house on the market. She’s lived in this particular house with my step-father for 25 years. It’s 45 minutes from Mulletville. It’s where Chuck and I got married, and where Junior has had all his birthday parties. Lots o' history.
She’s closing on Friday.
Second, my father put his house on the market. He’s lived in this particular house since 1979. It’s the house he and my mother bought when they got married. It's the house I grew up in; it’s also the house he got in the divorce (along with me). Barrels o' history.
My father is closing on Friday.
And finally, there’s me and Chuck. There’s a reason I asked if you’d want to know the true identity of Mulletville. It’s because—duh—we are getting the hell out of here. I’m still in shock; I didn’t think this day would ever come. I thought I’d be 85 and that I’d still be blogging about Mulletville—that somehow I was fated to spend a lifetime here paying penance for a sin I’d committed in another life.
And I’m not even Catholic.
Where are we going? That’s where things get interesting. Over the next two months we’re moving...
...into my father’s house.
Even though I’ve called his town Mulletville Lite, the ratio of mullets to people is 1:5,000 instead of 1:1. It was named one of the best towns in Connecticut in which to live. We get to raise our kids in a town that doesn't have belligerent drunks loitering in front of the library. I can stop worrying about the street-talkers and the nuns. The Park and Rec Department knows how to spell.
The interesting part of this is that my mother is moving into a smaller house and is giving me a lot of her furniture. Furniture that would have a lot less mileage had it stayed where it was 30 years ago and not moved into a new house with my step-father.
Father’s walls: “You again? Didn’t you leave here? What the fuck are you doing here?”
Mother’s dining room hutch: “Hell if I know. Jesus, are you still beige?”
Chuck and I will probably host Thanksgiving and Christmas since I'll be barge-size with Kid #2 by then, which means my darling parents will again be reunited in the house that holds so many delightful memories.
At least everyone will know where we keep the extra forks. And hand towels. And bottle openers.
God, I need a drink.
But look, after I recovered from envisioning all the bizarre and surreal ramifications of what Chuck and I are about to do, I was struck by something. This move is a gift, in a million different ways. Chuck and I have a chance to make whole a house that has, for many years, symbolized a lot of pain, sorrow and emptiness. I have the chance to metaphorically repaint. (As soon as I throw a dropcloth over my mother's dining room hutch.)
Greener pastures await!
I just hope Junior sees it that way. In the next few months he's experiencing a new preschool, a new house for his grandmother, grandfather and himself, and a new sibling. Is it any wonder he’s having issues with object permanence (fine, I have the Early Childhood Education Director on speed dial) or that he wants to stay home and cling to things that are comfortable and familiar before they, um, get up and cohabitate with Granny’s stuff in Grandpa’s house?
I told you it was rhinoceros's penis-sized bananas.
