Sharing Walls and Moving House

Loverpants and my story is well-documented. We met as Resident Advisors in college. Sharing Walls, aka Building Community was the nexus of our romantic relationship. It is all we have ever known. Even when we have purchased a home, we have shared walls with other condo association tenants. We have lived in the country, in the city, and we have always had people living either above or below us.

It is not the life I thought I wanted, but it's the life that I would not trade.

Our two children have only ever known this life. They came home from the hospital to a beehive of activity. We actively feared that if we employed the Ferber-method, we'd have some explaining to do to our neighbors. (We promise! We're not neglecting them by letting them cry! We're just trying to get more than 20 minutes of sleep at a time! Fingers crossed, hey? {Insert maniacally hopeful eyebrows raised in pleading hope that this works}).

We have experienced all the benefits and the drawbacks of living in close community with people whose blood we do not share which have included: feeling like a constant disruption; dealing with near-constant disruption; getting contact high from the weed being smoked downstairs; sharing holiday gatherings; never truly feeling alone; being able to call upon built-in babysitters; having an extended family.

In fact, we just moved to live at a boarding academy. We are off-campus now until housing opens on campus. We may live here for the rest of our careers, sharing walls with sweaty teenage boys. For us, the expense of living at a boarding academy is second to none. We have all the access to a city, take many of our meals in the school dining hall, and get to enjoy close proximity to brilliant people. Also, we have no house payment. Kerchingaling.

When we were searching for our temporary housing, though, we relied on beaucoup online resources since we were not able to fly to prospect apartments. That's right, we had to ferret out housing from afar and hope that it would be as described.

We used all of the usual online resources to browse apartments online and even benefited from the new venture of Cara Concierge who put boots on the ground when we couldn't otherwise be there. We couldn't have landed in a better place, with better landlords and better location. Most of all, we're glad to share walls once again with non-family. We may not be the HGTV poster family, but we're grateful for our grown-up life that makes us feel like young RAs.

Boomerangs

After hyperventilating

at the apocalyptic mess

in girlchild's room, the floor

laden with crafts half-

done and clothes half-

worn we together

resolved on a plan for a tidier space.

Our reconnaissance mission

to a store called Boomerangs

for the elusive desk

with drawers.

We purchased a solid oak

grand dame of drawers,

loaded with the help of brawny workers, so kind.

On our way home, boychild asked

if he could watch YouTubes on

"How to pick a lock," since

he said that might be useful in his future.

Back home

Husband paused, no words

reminded me, third floor 

aloft, winding narrow stairwells

this monster 

bedroom imposter must be returned.

Boomeranging to Boomerangs I found her majesty had no match, elected instead to accept store credit and a sequined hooded sweatshirt from Justice, the balance of justice here lacking as it will be if boychild ever tries to pick a lock to his sister's room which may well remain apocalyptic until the very end.

She's Still There

When was a time in your life when you felt the most hope? That's the question Chrystal Evans Hurst asks in her new book She's Still There: Rescuing the Girl in You. Hurst posits that if we ask that person, the person we were who was full of hope about our future, we will find the answer to whatever we are questioning right now in our lives. Because she's still here. We just need to go and ask her what she thinks.

I haven't read Hurst's book but this premise resonates with me. I've just moved house with my family, back to a place where I have grasped for hope and held hope and lost hope in equal measures. I'm at a career crossroads, juggling the hot potato of what it is I still want to be when I grow up. So I'm taking Hurst's advice. I'm going to go find that girl and rescue her.

***

There are a couple iterations of Kendra who had a lot of hope.

The first I can remember is Young Kendra who spent a lot of time with her grandparents. They really were the most loving forces you could imagine. Doting, good-humored, and completely enamored of their family. Also, they thought a heaping bowl of Rocky Road ice cream was a totes appropriate pre-bedtime snack. I spent countless afternoons and overnights at my grandparents' houses. I felt secure and loved and could not imagine a world that would be so cruel so as to eclipse the warmth of my grandparents. I only have one living grandparent now. I called my Granny today. She wasn't home. But it still felt good to be able to call her. A baby step in my rescue mission.

Another Hopeful Kendra can be found in Recent High School Graduate Kendra and the summer that followed. An idyll, that season. I was so glad to be done with the drudgery of high school, the negativity and sadness that had clouded my purview for the last few years prior. Also, I was still working at Dairy Queen and you CANNOT BEAT full access to a walk-in cooler with whole vats of boulders of Reese Cup goodness. When I think about visiting that Kendra, it's honestly hard to imagine how unobstructed her view was. She wouldn't know how she'd have her heart shattered in the coming year. She would think college would be all about studying interesting topics and taking study breaks to watch 80's rom-coms with her roomies. And yet she'd probably still tell me something valuable, which is, to pursue that which interests me, and to try new things even if it's uncomfortable because otherwise how will we ever grow and how will we ever figure out what we want to be when we grow up?

I usually resist notions of having to rescue ourselves because it sounds unnecessarily dramatic. However, I understand Hurst's urgency in that for so many of us, we've buried that person along with our hope. We've become jaded. We've forgotten what it is to believe in our ability to THRIVE rather than merely survive.

And you? Do you have someone you need to rescue? What will he/she say to you when you find him/her? She's still there, and so is he.