This day finds me irritable - my family members drained the hot water heater this morning and freezing cold was not going to cut it for me, so here I sit at my kitchen table, NOT in my 8am math class. Grrrr damn teenagers and their half hour long showers.
I could have just brushed through the mop and gone on to class all crusty feeling but my poor muscles are aching so bad from my workout Tuesday night that without the heat I fear they may refuse to sustain me through my day and...another work out at 5:30.
And may I just add that I think it is bullshit for a college to charge me 335 dollars for a fitness class when I already have a gym membership - that gym class makes me cranky.
But enough complaining.
This morning, when I first opened my eyes, my thoughts went immediately to my dear friend/co-worker Barbara who is traveling to New Jersey today to close the sale of her parents house. Her Dad passed a bit ago and her Mom, just recently.
Last night before I left work, we chatted about the feelings that accompany the loss of your childhood home.
She doesn't like to get emotional in front of others, so when she began to cry, we cut the convo short.
I am thinking of her and sending her love love love today, as I know all too well how heart wrenching that process can be.
I wrote five essays for the writing contest this year, one of them happened to be on that subject exactly. If I do say so myself it was beautifully constructed and written, I just had a hard time capping all that emotion off at 750 words - as those of you who know me know, 750 words is me just warming up, setting the scene, not enough to accurately encapsulate that much sorrow.
I submitted something else and left the essay open ended, something I will revisit sometime when I can find the time.
I told Barbara that before Nana and Papa's house was sold, during my last visit to the house, I sat alone in each room and allowed the memories to flood over me, soak into me, return to the sights and sounds of a lifetime, generations, traditions.
I told Barbara it was the hissing of the radiator in the living room that did me in.
I sat alone in the dark, trying to smell my Grandfathers cologne, the Thanksgiving Turkey, camel non-filters, when that radiator hissed from behind my left ear.
A sob slammed off my rib cage and pummeled my lungs as it worked it's way up and out.
The hiss of the radiator.
Funny how a sound like that, the ones that fade into the background of a life can be the ones that when heard in pin-drop silence, reverberate the loneliness and loss of what was, and what will never be again.
I heard that hiss my whole damn life.
I never thought about it until that moment when the hiss became years of our laughter, the candy dish on the table that was always full of hersey kisses, the ceramic swan on the end table that had roses growing out it's tail feathers like the swan boats had people growing out theirs, the tea cups that rattled on their shelves when Nana walked through the dining room and the high school graduation picture of my Mother that sat on the shelf above my bed in the "front room.'
when I close my eyes, after mopping off the face full of tears I can see it all as if I were in that room right now.
For my sisters here is a little more.
The gold leaf mirror that hung over the rocking chair where Dad always sat next to the table with black legs and the brass circle top that Mom now has in her house, Nana's rocking chair by the little end table at the entrance to the dining room below the sea scape picture and the photo of the thatched cottage Papa was born in that Mom took on our trip to Ireland. The forest green slip covers on the couch and chairs with little maroon and gold something or others all over them. The sheer curtain panels that hung between drapes that matched the slip covers. The matching circle pillows with ruffled edges. The family pictures that hung on the opposite wall - in the middle Nana and Papa on their wedding day, him in his Navy dress uniform, her in that beautiful classic satin gown - the same one on Bonny in their wedding photo, also hanging. Gerard in his Marine dress, looking healthy and happy. The gold rug that was worn in certain places, bubbled slightly in others, especially on the landing of the stairs below the family crest. I could go on and on, but you who gain no comfort from that would get bored - And I am crying and need to blow my nose - seems appropriate to stop.
I will say that losing that house is one of the most painful things I have had to endure. Knowing that I do not have it to go HOME to, leaves me feeling orphaned somehow - I think the crack in the side walk must miss me tripping over it....
It is tough tough stuff - I am not sure I will ever recover from having to weed through the belongings of my family and decide what stays, who gets what, and what, reluctantly, painfully goes in the industrial strength trash bags.
Watching the goodwill truck pull away with our furniture in the back felt like being stabbed in the chest, breathing was hard standing there on the porch of 43 Willoughby as the exhaust hit the freezing February air, my inhale stinking of driving away for good.
It sucked and sucks still - hurts, will hurt me until I myself die.
I'll say it again, it is not the crows feet that suck about middle age, it is the loss of your family, the loss of what was.
I hope I haven't depressed you all - not my intention - I just have to get in it to really get in it.
If I am on team Barbara today, "I gotta go there to know there."
And, this morning I have the luxury of going there BECAUSE KEVIN I couldn't shower and go to class.
One day he will sit by a hissing radiator and long to hear my pounding fist on the locked bathroom door and my screaming voice "GET THE HELL OUT OF THE FREAKING SHOWER KEVIN!"
It's the circle of life y'all.
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