No Tears

I drove away.... by myself... I was still in the driveway when Sir Arsewipe and the girls headed off with another load of crap from the house. It felt strange to drive away from my home... surreal almost. After the last few days of cleaning and scraping and dusting and mopping and cleaning toilets and floors and windows and packing and pitching out crap and fighting and arguing as the pressure mounted... leaving the house was strangely anti-climactic. I got in the car and just left.  And I was alone... except for the dogs... and somehow that felt fitting. I had done everything possible to make that house a home and it hadn't worked and it was strangely characterless as I left. Dreamer stared out over the fence and I knew it was the last time I would see her since I would not be returning. Sir Arsewipe will pick her up this morning and remove her to her new digs. I had mopped my way out the door and I had sat on the deck in the old chair that needs to go to the knitter's group. (They will use it and LG says she is going to place a doll in the chair with knitting in her hands and think of me every time she looks at it. They will miss me especially LG.  One of those days I would love to have her come for a visit in Nfld but I'm not sure if that will ever happen. I will miss them... they have all been such bricks for me.)  I sat on the deck waiting for the young couple who have bought our house... I wanted to give them the key and I was so pleased that I was able to have the house really nicely cleaned for them. The grounds were not as nice and Sir Arsewipe had to go back this morning for the horse and the canoes and some tools that he had borrowed from friends. But I drove out the driveway and I never looked back. When I got to the end of the road I looked right and then left and then right again and I headed down the road knowing that I would never turn that corner again. In away I am turning a new corner.  Jiggs and Narmie settled down and in a way I wished I could have turned left on the highway and not right and just kept driving until I was too tired to drive anymore. In some ways I wish I could have headed for Nfld and not looked back. In some ways I found it strange that I wasn't more torn up about leaving my sweet little home... but you see, I had already begun to look at that house as belonging to someone else.

I am taking my canoe with me. Michael had no plans for it and so I decided to take it with me. It will once again pass through Ontario where it got it's beginnings.... but then will head on to Nfld... I'm pretty sure it won't go beyond that. I'm pretty sure it will be there until it disintegrates into oblivion. I sit here in my parents kitchen tapping away at this computer and staring at the computer screen wondering how the girls are doing. I miss them. They are with their dad now and will be until they join me on Tuesday when their father goes back to school. They were so tired and stressed out after several of the hardest days they have ever had. They worked on the house with me like Trojans.  And when they left me last night neither of them was in the best mood. I think the stress and fatigue had joined forces to make them grouchy and mean. When they have rested they will be in better temper and I am thinking that they need a few days with their dad to be reminded of how he works.

School begins on Tuesday and all their friends will be going back to class and they will not. There is no point in registering them for classes when they will only have four days before they leave. They are happy to not be going to school yet. They are happy that they can miss the first month though I think Daughter #2 is worrying about missing so much especially with starting in a new school. She is worrying that her marks will reflect that.  Daughter #1 is not worried at all and thinks it is great to have the extra vacation.

Next up will be packing up Mom's and Dad's house. I am taking a well earned vacation today and putting my feet up. I will have to go to the store later and buy some dog food since Sir Arsewipe took all the dog food in the last minutes of leaving without a thought to the fact that I have fed his dog for the last month but apparently mine don't matter. So the poor guys are sitting this morning waiting for their bowls to sprout food.

I have a week of living with my parents here before we head home to Nfld... (I may go crazy in that time!)... there has been a bit of a boomerang in events in Nfld and I knew that I shouldn't have posted pictures of my house yet since  I knew I would be jinxing myself. Sure enough there is a problem with the survey. I guess the land that I am buying has been in the family for generations and no one really knows where the perimeters actually lie. It is a problem to buy such land without an adequate survey since resale might be an issue and could cost me a fortune to get a survey with having to find affidavits etc.... What a headache! I have also had an offer on Mom's and Dad's house and we have verbally accepted the offer. So now I am selling another house and I will have to have this one situated so that Sir Arsewipe will have next to nothing to do other than move out the last few things in this house after I am gone. When I leave and my divorce goes through I will have absolutely no connection with him other than what has to occur through the girls and a paycheck every two weeks. Who would have believed this only a few short months ago. He did... that's who.

Anyway, here I am at this house of ours that Mom and Dad have lived in for the last 9 years. It is small with only two bedrooms with parents who are used to living on their own. This will be a difficult time for the next few weeks... I am used to living on my own and it will be a huge adjustment to live with parents who are still trying to influence me and direct how I live. They think they have the right but it becomes very irritating when you are used to doing your own thing. When we get to the house in Nfld (if the sale goes through) I will set them up so that they have some autonomy as will the Daughters and I. And thank god for that! It will be a much needed autonomy.

So of the list of big things happening in my life, I have one completed. One house sold. I have moved all of my stuff. Now I am working on selling this house, and still working on buying one in Nfld. I have cashed in an RRSP so that I can pay off a joint credit card so that I can get my name off that before I go. Meanwhile there is a trip to Nfld looming, dogs to be vaccinated, kennels to be bought, luggage to be bought and packed,  computer to be bought, some boxes to be sorted and organized, movers to be arranged, banks to be notified of changes, and a car and utility trailer to be purchased in Nova Scotia. On it goes. I am sure I am going to be just about off my rocker soon... but then maybe I already am. If any potential employer ever wanted to see what I am capable of then they would just have to look at this few weeks of my life and see that I have the organizational skills enviable by the gods.

Mantra supreme: one step forward, one day at a time, all the time keep your chin up because if you don't see where you're going... you'll inevitably fall over a cliff, and believe me in life there are always cliffs.