Battered

Writing to you from Sacramento, where our world has fallen apart.
A week ago, more than that, Tuesday the 15th of July, three days before closing, my agent called me to tell me that the buyer was backing out. WHAT? I said.

The buyer officially backed out the next day. We were leaving on Saturday with the house unsold, vacant, and now we are two states away.

I can't even get into this. I can't think about it too long without bursting into tears. How do we rent a place down here when we still carry the mortgage payment on our house in Seattle? How will we ever find another buyer when all the news is full of banks closing, stocks dropping, economy sucking???

I am not even on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I'm in the middle of one as we speak. I'm deep in the throes of my private little nervous breakdown. With that one phone call, everything we hoped for busted right out from under us.

Out! Done! Woo!

My last day of work was yesterday.
Everyone expected me to feel poignant and sad.

But did I? Nooooooooooooooooooooooo.

The joy I felt threatened to blossom over into hysterical giggling by 2:40pm.
By the time I drove out of the garage for the LAST TIME IN MY LIFE, I was laughing.

Goodbye and good luck to you. I'm off to be happy again.

And pack, dear god, we are moving in 5 DAYS!

Hello triple digit heat with family.
Hellooooo Hellooooo Hellloooooooooo!!!

A Special Message

XELA!

You wrote me the greatest email, and I am going to write you back.
I wish I could sit down with wine and do it, but alas.

Although I've heard there's great non-alcoholic wine, JLohr actually makes one, called Ariel.
Maybe I'll get a bottle of that and sit down this week.

I will write you back, love you for sending me such an awesome letter.

Scattered

We are packing!
We have procrastinated beyond all procrastinating and now we are really doing it.
Packing always reminds me of things I've wanted to do with little bits and bobs that I've been keeping.

So I pack, find bits and do things with them.
Like tiny corners torn off of cards I've received in the mail. Addresses I wanted to keep somewhere.
I just entered them all into my computer.

I am so organized.
And this is how packing starts.

Packing ends with me up in arms, sick of all my crap and piling things into random boxes, sure I'll never open it again.

And typically, I don't. And about four years later, on some other move, I'll discard that stuff.

But for now, those things are the priceless artifacts of my life. Required so I remember who I was and where I've come.

Freedom

Yesterday, I lost my job. I didn't get fired, they just accepted my pseudo-resignation. I had tried to move with them to Northern California, but they didn't have anything for me there, so they said that and then there were these long pauses. They were willing to keep me on in Seattle, but the Pope needs to get to Northern California as soon as possible, so that wasn't an option for us.

So, effective next Friday, I am no longer an employee of the company I have worked at for 9 years.

I feel ELATED.
I feel like I was just paroled. I have been so unhappy for so many years, and then the February Scotland explosion burned me to a crisp.

And with that brief update, I am going to pack.
Because my new life is waiting for me.

Waiting for the Pope, waiting for the Pup and waiting for a happy Salome to come down and remember that life shouldn't have to be so hard, and you shouldn't have to work yourself into a chronic hive condition in order to live.

Happy Independence Day.