On leaving Norman

I didn't sleep last night. Not at all. I'm literally trembling from exhaustion, but my respite from my troubles has come with the rising of the sun....it's my back yard.

We will only live in this house for 3 more weeks. I have lived here since November, and my husband has lived here for 5 years. 5 years is a long time to live anywhere for me. I don't know that I've ever lived in any house for 5 years in my whole life, but this place has been his and then ours. To be honest, I hated it when I got here. I missed the 4 bedroom house with a giant yard and fire pit that I left. I missed all my girlie everything. I was annoyed with all the natural wood everything and the fishing pole picture frames and everything being so masculine. It just wasn't my house. It was someone else's house, and, for the first 4 months, I felt like I was squatting here.

But then something started to happen. Somewhere along the way, I got "my" dresser and "my" side of the couch and the mugs I like to use for my coffee. (My favorites are the one that says "Dan" that he got from his mom and the ones that say "Baby's Coffee" from a coffee shop in the Keys) Maybe it was when we had a few days of snow and the whole place looked like something out of a movie. Maybe it was on one of our walks to the grocery store or one of my favorite boutiques. Maybe it was after "his" friends started to become "my" friends too....not sure, but I'll tell you this. I'm going to miss this place.

I'm going to miss being able to walk absolutely anywhere. I even walked to our wedding. I'm going to miss the buildings on campus. They're so much older than the ones I lived around for the 3 years before I got here. I'm going to miss the restaurants. Dan has taken me places with foods I still can't pronounce. I'm going to miss the birds. Anybody who knows me well at all knows my recent but deep connection with birds and feathers. Norman has this chubby, little grey bird variety that always seems to find me when I'm having a bad day. I'm going to miss the seasons here. I know the summers are unbearably hot, but I have so enjoyed getting to see snow again. Makes me think of my childhood in the suburbs of Chicago. I'm going to miss the one street of downtown. It's little, but it's cute. There's enough there to spend a day wandering. I'm going to miss the gazebo where we got married. I'm going to miss the walking itself. We have had so many talks and learned so many things about each other during those walks. Oh the things we've talked about. I didn't realize I could love Dan more than I already did, but I do....and a lot of that happened on those walks.

I'm going to miss the people here. I've spent my life leaving people, and that has left me with a lot of friends in a lot of different places. The leaving is always hard though. Dan spent years telling me about all his wonderful friends. Dan is nearly an eternal optimist who will see good in the ugliest of people, so I thought he was exaggerating about what his friends were really like. He wasn't. These people are gold. I've grown to truly love them. A long time ago, I had a sizable group of close friends. We spent time at each other's houses just about every weekend and always time during the week too, and then I went several years without having very many close friends at all. That was a sad, lonely time for me. I will never forget being at a barbeque about a month and half ago, and the thought struck me "Oh my gosh.....this is what it's like to have friends"....not hypothetical...not an abstract thought....me. This is what it's like for ME to have friends. I'll also never forget realizing that people here were talking with me because they just might actually enjoy my company. I got invited to things...without Dan. Just me. These people here gave something back to me that I thought was gone for me. I hope some day I'm able to express what exactly that has meant to me, so maybe this will help do the job.

And my back yard. We don't really have a back yard. We have sort of some space between the back of our duplex and the fence line of someone else's property, but when I look out there and see so much green, I just feel peace. The big trees speak to me, and those lovely birds prance around and stare at me while they cock their tiny heads to the side in silent conversation with me. I have watched the picture change from barren and cold and empty to covered with beautiful snow to burgeoning with new spring growth. It has become a view that is just for me. Somewhere along the way, it became mine.

I have not felt "at home" in a very, very, very long time. Dan and I have even talked about my frustration with this....but I'm feeling it now. This place, this town, this funny little apartment just off of campus has become home to me just in time for me to leave it.

So Norman, I love you, and I will love you forever. You made my life a more wonderful story. You gave me things and people that no other place could. For that, I am in your debt. I will carry your picture in my heart for the rest of my life, but I do have to go. There are 3 babies that have tugged on my broken heart every day that I have spent here. It's time to write the next chapter. It's time to continue this adventure of my life.....but we'll always have each other, Norman, won't we?