When my ex-spouse just came to pick up our daughter, I suddenly realized that it was one year ago today that I picked up the keys to my new home and began the task of building a new life. So very much has changed since then, yet it still doesn't really feel like it's been an entire year since I moved out.
I remember every detail of that day and every emotion that I felt. I recall the day starting out rather emotionally, with the somber realization that once I walked out the door of my marital home for the last time, I would be saying goodbye to the relationship that I had with someone whom I had spent the majority of my life with. As I packed my car with boxes and made several trips back and forth between houses, it seemed like every trip out of that driveway got a bit sadder. However, when the moving truck met me at my new home later in the day with all of the bigger items, the sadness gave way to excitement. It was starting to feel good at that point, and it was especially gratifying to a control freak such as myself to be making all of the decisions on my own for once in my life.
Halfway through the unloading of the truck though, my daughter and I saw "the chair". This disastrous piece of furniture was the ugliest thing that had graced my old home and I had in no uncertain terms made it clear that it wasn't coming with me. Imagine my surprise to see that thing being carried out of the back of the moving van. I broke speed records getting out the front door and putting a halt to all activity by the movers. It was then that the guys informed me that my "husband" had told them to put it on the truck, along with a dresser I didn't want, a water cooler that wasn't coming with me and a couple of other pieces that I had deemed unworthy to cross the threshold of "MY" house. Thus ended any of the sadness that I had felt earlier in the day. In the end, I managed to offload a couple of the pieces to the movers and threw the rest under the back stairs until I could either get a burn permit or a gypsy to get rid of it.
I was really getting into things when the furniture delivery guys came with my new dining room set. I couldn't wait to see it all set up. My excitement turned to near hysteria though when the delivery men brought in the huge and heavy box, set it down in the dining room and then proceeded to leave. I figured they were going out to the truck to get their tools so that they could get this thing assembled for me. Apparently that one particular store doesn't "assemble" anything. Ever. Not even for a fee. I tried to explain to them that the only furniture I'd ever put together in my life belonged to Barbie and Ken, but
to no avail. Tears didn't work either. Needless to say, I got my first taste of what being a single female homeowner really meant. The table assembly actually went well, and the chair leg attachments seemed okay too, until I realized that I had the front and back legs mixed up on all four chairs. I rectified that situation, but for some reason, no one else was willing to sit down on the chairs until they flipped them over to see whether it was safe or not. People can have such a lack of faith sometimes.
During those first few weeks, I discovered broken closet hinges/lack of water pressure/tree branches that hit the cable and power lines/a leaking basement doorway and a perpetually barking dog somewhere on the street. The hinges were fixed with the help of YouTube, the water pressure solved by the removal of a tree and many dollars later. The tree branches were cut down by my ex-spouse in exchange for the use of my car (I've become very good at bartering) and the leaking door was solved with a bit of caulking. To clear up any misconception regarding the caulking, yes I fixed it myself. The only problem I had was figuring out how to get the caulking gun to work. When I finallt related it to how an icing decorating tool works, it all made sense to me (go ahead - roll your eyes, but the door doesn't leak anymore). Sadly, the one thing I can't fix is the barking dog. Not legally anyway.
If anyone had told me a few years ago that I would enjoy shopping at hardware stores collecting tools, I probably would have backed away slowly from them and assumed that they were off their medications. I spent most of my life avoiding hardware stores unless I needed lightbulbs or something similar. If they'd said that I would become proficient at using a power drill, I would have looked around to see who they were talking about, because they certainly couldn't have meant ME. I wouldn't have believed it if anyone had said I'd actually enjoy lawn mowing - the closest I'd come to a lawnmower was when I had to move it out of my way to get to something else in the shed. And I most definitely would not have believed it if I'd been told that my ex and I would ever forge any type of amicable friendship and become better co-parents than we ever were as spouses. Yet, all of this has happened and what I now can't believe is that I ever doubted that I could do any of it in the first place.
In the first few months of last year, my daughter would run for cover when she saw me coming with the toolbox or dragging out the lawnmower. My ex would take it upon himself to scoff at the idea of me painting a deck or digging up trees. They don't do that anymore. We've come a long way from the day when I spent an hour trying to replace an outdoor dryer flap, only to finish it and realize that I put it on upside down. Same with the garden hose hanger. And the filing cabinet drawer handles. When my daughter doubted my abilities in the beginning, my response to her telling me that I'd never be able to do it myself and maybe we should call someone, was always "just watch me". I may not have always done things right the first time, or the way others would have liked me to, but things always got done securely in the end and always "my" way. My goal wasn't solely to get the job done, but to also show my daughter that just because you've never done something before doesn't mean that you shouldn't try.
This past year has been a definite learning curve for both of us, but except for snow shoveling, I've discovered that I actually enjoy painting, fixing things, lawn mowing etc. My daughter enjoys decorating her bedroom (over and over) and her favorite thing to do is to keep changing her mind on paint color. I like learning how to improve on what is already in the house, but I draw the line at re-painting the same room in less than a year. Next week I will be "instructing" the painting and hopefully hear "just watch me" coming from my daughter's mouth.
We have had many challenges getting to where we are, but life is all about challenges and how we handle them. For the most part, I believe that she and I have handled things quite nicely as far as getting used to a new house goes. There are still other challenges being dealt with, but at least now we have the time to take it one challenge at a time and work through things together in our cozy little house. I hope that all of this has shown my daughter to not be afraid to change what doesn't work, and that if others doubt her ability to listen to her inner "just watch me" voice.
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