Housekeeping!

Howdy, kids! It’s been awhile, no? I feel like I start tons of blog entries that way and although I’d really like to write more frequently, when things are boring around here there’s not much to say.

And by that, I am pleased to report that things are kind of boring around here! Yay! Sorta!

Freddie’s recovery continues apace. Physically, he’s almost 100% back to normal. He just has some lingering hand issues that he needs to have looked at. One, to make sure the fracture healed properly and two, his left ring finger is a bit messy. It looks like it was broken at some point and nobody noticed? Granted, that was the least of our worries at the time but the middle knuckle there is all enlarged and I think he can bend it okay but it’s a bit stiff. Shades of Jamie Fraser up in here, but I’m confident we can get it dealt with before I have to chop it off. We’ll see!

The eye thing is still going on. Not a huge amount of improvement there, but we figured as much. The doctor said that it takes TIME more than anything else and that he wouldn’t even consider surgery until six months have passed, which would put us at the beginning of March. The other doctor we consulted also said “TIME” but suggested some other things that aren’t quite LEGAL but… something something stem cells something and it was all very interesting but expensive-sounding and now I kinda wish we’d banked The Teenager’s cord blood when she was born but maybe that wasn’t an option due to the crazy way she arrived? I don’t remember. Anyway, we’re not doing that. We’re doing the waiting part.

We did get him new glasses, which look very cute. His old ones, god bless ’em, are still functional but the lenses were a bit scratchy (this happens when you slide down the road ON YOUR FACE). He has the prism on the one side but it’s less noticeable than it was before. He still looks crazy if you look at him directly but for the most part, we all forget that it’s there.

As for me, I am in a holding pattern of sorts. I had been taking tentative steps toward making something out of my life when I was thrust into this supportive caregiver role and I’m kind of stuck here right now. That’s fine. It’s not permanent. My job right now is to keep everyone alive (so far, so good), and oversee the shoveling out of the manse so we can put it up for sale. It should surprise no one that I am doing a half-assed job of it but it IS getting done. This house is going up for sale the first weekend of March and the realtor we’re working with is confident that we’ll have offers galore. I certainly hope so.

Because yeah, we are leaving New Jersey after 22 years. It’s bittersweet, since I truly love it here, but with ageing parents and whatnot, it makes sense for us to load up the wagons and go west, back to Ohio, to the place where I came from, my ancestral lands.

I worry sometimes that it’s the wrong decision. I don’t think it is, at least not for Freddie and for The Teenager, both of whom will benefit from a slightly relaxed environment. The suburbs of NJ are a high-pressure way to live, despite my very best efforts to live up to my generation’s Slacker reputation. There’s a lot of competition and bullshit in the schools and the job market here just NEVER FUCKING STOPS and we really don’t want to be in a position where one of us is working 25 hours a day, which has been the case in the past. We’re not doing that anymore, despite SOMEONE’S best efforts.

I do a lot of yelling. And now that he works from home, if I find he’s pushing it too far, I’ll just make a ton of noise. I’ll run the vacuum and that upsets the dogs and everyone starts yelling and a good time is had by all. I mean, it took me the better part of a decade to make him realize that work-life balance was even a THING and his was out of whack. Now I just have to make him pay attention to it. We’ll get there but yeeeeeesh.

So moving the fam to the other end of the time zone is going to be good for them, but I’m not 100% convinced it’s going to be good for ME. I left Ohio for reasons (and Reasons) and even though a lifetime has passed, I’m not sure I’m ready to revisit certain places and spaces. I already have a list of People To Avoid, like some kind of reverse scavenger hunt. That should be interesting.

And maybe it will all be okay. I know I’m not the same person I was when I left (except I am) and maybe other people aren’t either (except I bet they are). I will be open-minded about things. I’d hate for the State of Ohio to have to add to my police files, after all.

On the flip side of that, I am actually excited to be able to re-connect in person with a bunch of old friends. Thanks to the magic of the internet, there are a lot of people I’m still in touch with, but it will be so nice to be able to hang out in person again. That will help a lot.

And we’ll see how The Teenager does. It kind of hurts my heart to uproot her in the middle of her high school career, but it’s not like she’s even BEEN to high school yet. She was physically in her school building 10 times this year (so far) and that’s just dumb. She says she doesn’t care and that she’s looking forward to a fresh start but I still feel a little bit like I’m failing her? I think that’s all me. I know she will be fine and will probably thrive to the point where I’m mad at how well she’s doing. I hope so.

The other upside is that we’ll have a whole city to explore. New places new faces new food new beer new parks new lakes new new new new. The ADHD brain thrives on NEW BETTER FASTER MORE and hooooo boy we are going to be serving up a ton of that!

In the meantime, we are whipsawing between BORING AS HELL and TERRIFYING AS FUCK. Everything is normal.

Comments Off on Housekeeping!

Filed under Uncategorized

Comments are closed.