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Tag: limbo

In Limbo

mood: ponderous | drinking: water

limbo

I picked up LeeLoo’s ashes today, brought them home in a small cedar box.

This weekend we will meet up with a few of her favorite people to let her fly free at the beach.

It’s been almost a month now since she left us, and I was getting to the point where I didn’t cry every time I thought of her. But when the vet tech handed me the smooth, heavy box, the reality of her loss crashed over me again.

I loved that dog more than I love most people I meet. She was a part, a big part, of the best years of my life, sharing the last 8 years with Boy and I, traveling with us everywhere that didn’t require an airplane.

We knew that change was coming… we’ve known it since the plus sign appeared on the stick in January. But somehow, losing LeeLoo made the end of our old life very clear, as if we suddenly reached the end of a book, closed the cover and put it up on the shelf.

And soon, any day now in fact, we’ll begin a new book. We’ll open up to page 1 and start writing a new era, one that includes Bean. Everything will be different.

But that’s the future tense. LeeLoo was the past tense. And right this moment, we’re in the present tense with not a lot to say. It’s a surreal time. We are living in the in-between, a weird frozen moment between what used to be and what will be.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying all these last moments of alone time. I’m sleeping in, watching movies, reading books, getting facials and massages and waxes and mani/pedis. I’m loving all this time with Boy, just the two of us.

But every time Bean puts a heel in my kidney, every time I feel the cramp of a Braxton Hicks contraction, every time I try and fail to hoist my planet-sized body out of a chair, I’m reminded that this time is just Limbo. Here today, gone tomorrow.

I have no idea what the future will look like, but I’m hoping very hard that it will be even better than the last eight years. Because that would be pretty goddamn amazing.

-Lo, with less than 2 weeks to go.

In Escrow

mood: overjoyed | drinking: raspberry tea
housefront1

There’s a funny thing about tunnels and the lights that sometimes appear at the end of them…

When there is no end in sight, you feel as if the state of limbo, of darkness, of uncertainty will stretch on and on and on into infinity. You begin to feel like you’ve been there for so long, you can’t remember what it is to live any other way.

And then, suddenly, light! And though you’re still within the tunnel, though you still haven’t reached the end, everything has miraculously changed. Suddenly you are certain that the end is, blessedly, near. And somehow you find yourself laughing at things (*cough* drunk frat boys outside my window at 3 a.m. *cough*) that, a week ago, made you feel like turning into a cutter.

All of that to say this: After 4 months, 134 houses, and 15 offers, the search is over. We’ve got a house.

Or, more accurately, we are in escrow. Apartment living shall continue for the near future. Keys to our adorable new house are not yet in hand. But there is suddenly an expiration date on Limboland, and that changes absolutely everything.

There were 7 other offers on this house, as is common in San Francisco surreal estate. But this time, finally, we were the ones who came out on top, thanks in no small part to the efforts of our most fabulous realtor, Jennifer Rosdail. And also to a letter I wrote to tell the sellers why Boy and I would make such wonderful buyers.

Turns out that sometimes people really do care about who buys their house, not just who has the most cash.

Our new home will be just a couple of blocks from the beach–you can hear the thunder of the Pacific Ocean when the windows are open. We’re also pretty close to Golden Gate Park, one of my most favorite places ever. So we’re pretty pleased about that.

The house isn’t huge, but it does have an extra bedroom, a nice garage for Boy and a big huge backyard for LeeLoo. It was built in 1939 and the previous owner bought it brand new. She took very good care of it, leaving the original details intact, so it’s a very charming little place with hardwood floors and sweet little alcoves.

We’re pretty much in love. (And one of us may have been overtaken by the repeated and spontaneous desire to do some booty-shaking in celebration, much to LeeLoo’s confusion.)

One of the things Boy and I kept telling each other throughout the last few months was that we couldn’t settle. We couldn’t just pick a house to have a house and be done with it. We had to end up with a house that made the whole ordeal worthwhile. We had to choose a house that we loved, that could become a home. A place that we could see ourselves in for years to come.

We feel like we’ve found it. And in about 30-ish days, it will truly be ours.

So here’s to lights and ends and certainty. A new adventure begins…

-Lo, in escrow.