Let the Weekend Begin

Life is pretty damn good...

We survived the roadtrip (more on that later), and came home to find Eldest had been accepted to college. My close friends and I secretly breathed a sigh of relief and not so secretly toasted her achievements. Granted, she's still a senior in high school and living at home, but taking college courses simultaneously with her high school classes, and then -God, Buddha, and the Fates willing- she moves to Oregon next year for university.

That, combined with my company being based in the Eastern US time zone, is how I find myself on the front porch with friends getting pleasantly tipsy at 2pm on a Friday enjoying rosé (and maybe a few G&Ts) and enjoying the unseasonably cool summer day (a spring like 102* F).

Ah, this is the life.... One child successfully reared on my own, friends to celebrate with, and a glass of wine to toast it all.

Cheers!

Those who wander are not lost, just finding their own way

We're on the road again, and by we I mean one mom, two dogs, and three teens. All living in the teeniest tiniest camper van ever built, our Westy.

You'd think two teenage girls and a 12 year old boy might mind sharing roughly 45 square feet of space. With no electrics. No bath. And no AC.  You'd be wrong. :) Despite the occasional squabble, they've been doing brilliantly well. And after 10 days of living/camping on the road and in the woods, we made our way  up to the Pacific Northwest, where I'm working for a week.

Upon arriving at the hotel I alway stay at for work, they scrubbed the dirt of the feet, traded flip flops for real shoes, and just like that they morphed from hippie kids to hipster kids, wandering the museums and art districts, eating lunch at hole in the wall Korean places, and sending me texts of graffiti street art. I love that they're so independent, so self sufficient, and so adaptable. It's amazing how they take everything in stride, and find their own way.

Eldest is off to uni  next year, and so we're checking out different schools  as we make our meandering way through the backwoods of Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia.

3500 miles and three weeks. One unforgettable adventure. Especially the ending... But that's a story for next time. 

I'm getting my groove back, finding my way, and finding my voice that's been muffled too long. 

And this roadtrip is just the beginning. 

The Next Adventure

It's been a long couple months. Major changes are occurring. 

I finally- after 6 long years of desiring- bought a Westy, a VW Westfalia camper van. We had one years ago, when the kids were itty bitty little things and there was another man in my life. 

I found one on Craigslist the other week, and on impulse called the guy. 

"You're the first person who's called about this van who isn't a hippy!" he exclaimed halfway through our conversation, "Sold! I'll hold it for you til you can get here."

A few days later I hop on a 5am flight to Northern California. Halfway through the flight, I get violently, horrendously ill. The plane lands in a rinky-dink airport in the middle of nowhere and I stumble off the plane to the closest airport bathroom, where I alternately sleep on the toilet floor and vomit for the next four hours. I literally crawl out of the bathroom and collapse in the floor in the airport hallway, completely ignored by passers by. I finally, luckily, and half delusionally, flag down an off duty airline mechanic leaving after a long night. 

"Is there a medical facility in this airport?" I ask. His blank stare tells me everything I need to know.

"A what?" he asks, probably wondering what the hell the woman lying on the floor is asking. 

"A doctor, a quick care, anything?" He shrugs, and it's all I can do to ask for a wheelchair to get me to a cab. He wheels me out, taking care to get my full name and the airline I came in on (in case I sue, I presume) and dumps me in a cab. "Closest ER, please," I ask the driver, who looks understandably scared, given that I'm vomiting all over his back seat and have shocking red and oozing welts protruding from every inch of my skin.

The driver, nice that he is, rushes into the hospital and retrieves another wheelchair for me when we arrive. He wheels me in, and as I'm doubled over in pain and alternately crying and vomiting, I check in.

I know the drill, I work in healthcare. And still I'm shocked as a nurse parks me in the corner of the ER, where I fall out of the wheelchair, and I spend the next hour huddled on the floor, crying and sick,  and only other patients also waiting for help bother to check on me.

A nurse finally retrieves me from the floor, and I'm given a bed and medication for pain. Then IV drips of antibiotics and anti-venoms. My phone rings, it's the VW Van guy. 

"I'm here with the van, where do you want to meet to see it?" he asks.

Completely drugged up, I tell him to bring it the ER. Tell them your my uncle, only relatives are allowed, I say. He shows up, a half hour later, and a sweet volunteer brings him to the ER bed I'm in.

I'm naked, save for the hospital gown, hooked up to IV drips and cardiac monitors, and he's looking around nervously like he's on some hidden camera pankster reality show.

"Do you want to see it?" he asks, somewhat ridiculously. I can't move, am hooked up to so many lines and wires I'd trip if I tried to. I laugh, say no, and we make somewhat awkward chitchat. I buy the van, sight unseen.

Hours later, I wobble out to the parking lot after I'm discharged, (diagnosis: severe allergic reaction to venomous spider) and there it is...

A 1983, manual drive, somewhat beaten up old camper van. 

And it's beautiful. 

I climb into it, and collapse in the back to sleep for a couple hours.

And so begins the next chapter...

New Perspective

I spent the whole weekend on the boat, for the first time since Trevor walked out without warning or explanation. I've spent a couple hours down here, on the weekends I'm home, but it's hard to be here alone. 

This weekend, though, I decided to push my way though the emotions. The weather is gorgeous, and I'm only home for two weeks before I "move" to Seattle for work. Here at the marina, though, the spring boaters are just starting to make an appearance. The rest of us are starting our annual  maintenance; cleaning, shining, waxing... shaking the proverbial winter dust off our sails and opening the portholes to the spring breezes. I decided to join them and return to what used to be my normal life, til it all went awry. 

I drove down to marina, screwed up my courage and committed to spending the night there. I made my way to the boat, chatting and catching up with all the neighbors along the way. I changed into shorts and a bikini top, got out the teak oil and fell into my springtime routine of refinishing the woodwork- something I've always loved. My box of oiling supplies- sandpaper, brushes, rags, teak oil- was still where I'd hidden it last spring when he had insisted on taking all "unnecessary supplies" off the boat. On deck, my handrails were still partially sanded, when they'd been abandoned last spring, slightly more gray for the weather. The sun shone above, voices and faint music floated over the water, and I settled into a blissful state of non-thinking. 

Hours later, hands cramped and arm muscles burning, I retired inside, turned on some music and made myself at home were I'm happiest: in the kitchen. But slowly, as the night darkened and despite my best efforts at avoiding, the echoes of the past floated through the air, "my beautiful bride" was whispered by the ghost of his memory, and his presence -as overwhelming as it always was- seemed to permeate every nook and cranny of the boat. I dreaded going to sleep, the v-berth seeming cavernous and empty. I crawled into bed, lost in the emptiness, and rearranged the pillows snugly against me- both as a barrier against the past which held me firmly in its grip, and as a comfort, a replacement for a lover that once held me close here.

Memories -both good and bad, for I'm no fool wearing rose colored glasses- held me hostage 'til I finally surrendered the past to sleep.

I normally sleep the sleep of innocents and babies on the boat. Last night, I slept the sleep of the tortured. Finally, about 530 this morning, I fell into the deep sleep of exhaustion, and when I woke late this morning I was tired, but somehow lighter. 

Whether it was subconscious or not, I had taken off my ring yesterday before I went down to the boat, for the first time in 13 months to the day it was put on, and exactly four months to the day he left. I didn't realize it in the moment of taking it of. I just did it. I left it on my bathroom sink, and it sits there still. But I'll admit I have noticed its absence. 

The hard part is knowing he left by choice. It was intentional. Planned. And a complete surprise to me. So I don't know how to grieve, really. How does one grieve for something they only thought they had? Because I realize, what I believed was there, what I changed my entire life for, what I opened my kids to... was not actually real. It was not healthy, it was not real, it was utterly devastating and almost destroyed my family.

He cheated, he lied, he made promises knowing he'd never keep them. I can't believe I ever trusted him, but now I'm here on the other side, having survived. Stronger. Smarter. And more aware of who I really am, and where I want to be. And the kids and I came through it, closer and stronger as a family.

So despite your pathological character, and your selfish ego that supersedes all else, we survived you, Trevor. And all I have to say is good luck- karma is a bitch and usually comes when you least expect it.