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| Someone I know from Twitter posted this. It spoke to me, so now it's speaking to you. |
It's been brought to my attention my Spotify link doesn't work for everyone. Well, crap. Spotify isn't for everyone, that's for sure. So, if you are very very interested, here are some good tunes I think you need to download into your own player of whatever kind you have. Let's sync up! And listen to nice music. All Summer long.
(those two songs go together; you HAVE to listen to them...together)
(if this & Margaritaville doesn't sound like summer, I don't know what does)
(from LOVE THE HARD WAY, a good movie by the way)
(live! at Chastain Park in Atlanta, GA!)
Summertime--
(one by Billy Stewart and one by the great, incomparable Billie Holiday)
(there's an amazingly funk-tastic Harry Potter version of this for you Potterheads, but I don't know if it's on any downloadable places.)
I have others, but that's a sample. And you know what I've left off? My beloved Barry Manilow. Here--go add this and this to your summer songs list; I will.
So I've been apartment hunting. It is daunting, looking at and for apartments. The first one I was super jazzed about--washer/dryer included?! Hells yeah! But then I walked into the actual apartment and--it was very nice and very clean. Lovely wooded view, nice big deck. But the rooms are teeny tiny. I am not used to teeny tiny.
The problem with apartments is this: you can get a lot of square space footage. But you're going to have to pay. They gave teachers a big raise for next year (it's about time--I've had my pay frozen at 2008 levels since, oh...2008), so I have some more wiggle room, financially, but I will still need to be able to eat and buy gas for driving to work. ...and travel to Spain for flamenco and Italy for wine. And I can't do those things if I'm apartment poor. So I've been spending some reflective time asking myself things like: what can I live with? What can I live without? Can I live with a teeny tiny bedroom that I'm squeezed into, less closet space? But super nice big deck? There's a give-take aspect to this I didn't consider, is what I'm trying to communicate. I knew living in an apartment would be down-sizing, which I wanted; I just didn't really grasp what down-sizing would actually look and feel like.
Also, you know what else I learned about apartment hunting? Be careful where you go hunting. Here's a tip, renter kids: if you get the application back, and they demand proof that your salary is 3x what the rent is...and the way they want you to prove this is handing over not just 3 months' of pay stubs, but also: a 1099 income tax form, 2 years' of prior income taxes, faxed verification of employment from your company, 3 months of bank statements showing deposit amounts, 2 valid forms of ID one of which should be a Social Security card, valid rental history from previous homes, AND they want you to fill out a criminal background check (I'm actually NOT making this up--I just copied, verbatim, from the paper in front of me)? Run!! RUN!!! Fly like the wind.
Besides the fact just thinking about trying to gather all of those items exhausts the sheer crap out of me, I absolutely don't care HOW nice it looks (this place looked super nice--seriously super nice, I really wanted to give them the deposit/application fee right then and there). NO. Run, run, run as fast as you can. So glad I took all of that back home with me and looked through it before I committed. I'm not living anywhere that people need to provide proof they aren't crackheads, because the apartment complex's desire to have proof the renters aren't crackheads immediately tells me they've rented to a lot of crackheads in the past. Nope. Nein. Nyet. No.
At any rate. I could also be just having a lot of emotions about it, which is why I'm sad in my heart. The grey, low barometric pressure day outside isn't helping. But mostly: my heart is just very very sad. This is simply not working, my marriage. But it's causing me to leave my lovely house. My quiet (when Miss M is gone or asleep), peaceful, lovely house. That I've lived in for almost 14 years, minus a 7 month separation stint back in 2007. More than that, this is the only home Miss M has ever known. And I'm taking her out of it to put her in a teeny tiny home. And right now she deeply misses her daddy (he's on a fishing trip), and she is quietly stealing my phone to leave him "I miss you SO much!" voice mails or texts that make my heart break, because I am aware (as she isn't) what's about to happen. This is going to be very hard for her.
So I've been asking myself a lot of "Can I live with...?" and "Could I do without...?" questions, but also presenting a lot of scenarios to myself. Scenarios like: well, what if we HAD to down size to a teeny tiny place anyway, due to forces beyond my control? What if something very horrible happened to either me or C? This happens to many children--a mommy or a daddy is gone, forever; Miss M would be okay eventually, right? Divorce and separation are equal to death, but so much easier because the other parent is still around--we will live right around the corner, there will be equal, shared custody, Miss M will see her daddy all the time, whenever she wants. Some children in the world are spending 3/4 of their childhoods in bomb shelters, or running from crazed terrorists with machetes. My child is loved beyond words...she just has to be loved in two different homes now.
I think because it helps to remind myself that (a) other people go through this, and (b) sometimes stuff happens that you can't control and then you have no say so over what you have to do, you just...DO it. So when you're in a situation that is bad, but is also contained by factors within your control, you will survive it. You will be okay. We will be okay.
Because human beings are surivors; we've been doing it since the dawn of time, under far worse conditions. I'm reminding myself of my great fortune in being able to take my time in my decision-making, that I am separating from a really very GOOD human being who is mature and loving, that I have two college degrees and a wealth of life experience to fall back on, that I am surrounded by friends and family who are wrapping me in love and care. Not everyone has this. And this is a blessing.
So. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to put in some ear buds and head to my favorite nature trail. I'm going to take a long hike through the woods on this dreary, grey day. Because Nature is good for that. And grey, dreary days are better when surrounded by chipmunks and squirrels and quiet spiders spinning webs in between green leaves of trees. Mother Nature is soul balm.
Here's another tune you can add to your summer listening list.
My sweet friend Patresa Hartman is on Youtube & Spotify too. Go
download her amazing songs. They're good for summer nights.
That Harry Potter Uptown Funk made my day. xoxox
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