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Ten o'clock on the dot and I'm just starting my blog post. Geez, oh my.
We're moved in. Ish. The weekend has been an absolutely, no good, very bad weekend. But that doesn't matter because we've got ourselves a perfect cozy apartment with all the granite countertop a girl could ask for, and the rest will take care of the rest. Right?
I try hard not to be a whiner, but the truth is sometimes I think whining feels good in a way that nothing else does. So humor me, will you? Allow me to write out the details of our absolutely no good very bad weekend and you can see for yourself if my whining is justified.
Let's begin!
1. I left work right at 3:00 on Friday. On my way home I listened to a voicemail from the mother of the girl who hit my car. I didn't say much about it on my blog, just know that on Wednesday a 16 year old girl backed right into my car. I honked up a storm and she kept right on backing up. Left a dent the size of Nebraska. The girl's mom left a message asking if she could have my license plate number and a picture of the dent for a police file. Last thing I could think of.
2. When I got home Greg was a bit stressed out. He has been trying hard to find a line of work that will satisfy his passion for theatre and his desire to provide for a future family. He told me he might need to take some extra classes at UVU if he wants to be certified to teach theatre in high schools. If he decides to take these classes he will need to start Monday. As in today. I wasn't quite ready for the curveball.
"Do you want to be certified to teach high school?" I asked.
"I want a job." He replied.
"Yes, but do you want that one?"
"I don't know."
"I can't think about this right now."
"You could show a little support."
"I really can't right now. I can't even let it have a place in my brain." It's not that I was trying to leave the boy to fend for himself. It's just that my mind thinks in terms of here and now and the here and now was that there were 20 boxes in the front room and load after load of junk that needed to be packed, loaded, unloaded, unpacked. This thought would have to wait.
3. After that stressful conversation and coming to no conclusion, Greg went with me to Wal-Mart to sell an old phone. We had put an ad on KSL, Utah's equivalent of Craigslist, and were waiting for the dude to show up with the cash. He said he would meet us. He didn't show. I called his number, and he didn't answer. So I called again. And again. I called five times. Nothing. Finally after waiting for 20 minutes and knowing we couldn't waste one more second of precious packing time, we left. The guy never called again. Will someone please crack this riddle for me? Who in the world says they will meet you somewhere to buy your phone and then never shows up? Sick, sick people.
5. After lots more packing, we headed over to my brother's place to grab his truck. He would be out of town for the weekend, but was very willing to let us use his truck. We picked it up, took it back to our place, and loaded up couches. I asked Greg for the key to unlock the cab to load boxes. My nephews were around helping us load up because they're studs like that. We packed the rest of the night, which involved for me a quick trip to my BFF's place to drop off a garage sale load and a stop at the grocery store.
7. Greg had a rehearsal for an upcoming comedy show from 10-12 Saturday morning. I wasn't happy about him having rehearsal the day that we were trying to move, but I was insisting that we hit up a family reunion at 3, so I suppose it was a trade. A rehearsal for a reunion. Everyone's happy except for that no one is happy because now we have three hours to move all of our stuff from Provo to Lehi- a 20 minute drive.
8. Greg got home right about noon and his mom and friend showed up right about that same time. We loaded all the vehicles and were set to go. Greg was going to drive up my brother's truck and then we would trade it later in the day for his car. He got in. He had the wrong key. He went in to look for the right key. Couldn't find it. I started looking. Key was nowhere to be found. Soon we were all immersed in an all out key search frenzy. After about half an hour I swallowed my pride and texted my brother to see if we could use the spare for now. He texted back that he has no spare.
10. More looking. More looking. More looking. We searched all over the truck, in Greg's car, in my car, upstairs, downstairs, in every box that was sitting out, everywhere imaginable. All five of us looked for close to an hour. No key. Finally, we felt bad about our crew that was wasting their time searching for a key instead of just unloading crap and going home, so we took everything up except the truck. We had too much to do and we needed the help too desperately to not use our help while we had them.
11. Arrived at the new apartment- I ran in to sign a lease. Sign. Sign. Sign. "Do you have a money order?" asked the lady. "Of course I don't have a money order. I have a check." "You need a money order before I can give you the key." This is where I hit my extreme panic mode. I had four people with loads waiting to help us move in. I had already made them wait an hour while I looked for a stupid key. Now I had to run around town transferring money into my account and getting a money order? In an act of complete humiliation and degradation I begged that lady with everything in me to just let us unlock the apartment and start hauling stuff in while I got the money order. "I promise I'm not going to hoodwink you," I said, "I just can't have all those people waiting in the sun to unload stuff." Somehow, she relented. Miracle of miracles.
12. While Greg and crew unloaded, I sent out to search for a place to do a money order. As soon as I was in the car by myself I lost my cool completely and cried hot tears of panic. Do you guys have those tears? They're not sad, and they're not angry, they're just panic. It's a very advanced state of panic, I do believe, that will get you to the panic tears. I thought I would have to transfer money from my savings to my checking and I had no idea where my nearest bank branch and knew the chances of them being open at 2:00 on a Saturday were very slim. Then, I remembered I had just gotten paid the day before and wouldn't need to transfer the money, could just get a money order. Miracle #2.
13. Returned to the office with my money order 15 minutes later. Lady asked if I had set up the Qwestar account like I was supposed to. I said no. Then she asked if I had arranged the renter's insurance like I was supposed to. I said no. She chastised me and told me to do it Monday no matter what. I felt like a total idiot.
14. While I was running around doing all this, Greg, both moms, and Greg's friend were moving everything up to our apartment. My brother and his wife came to help out and then helped us unload. The unloading was frantic and frenzied- mostly dumping boxes looking for a key. No key.
15. We took a break to hit up the family reunion. I held an adorable baby and for 20 minutes forgot about the chaos that my life was. I tried to pet a dog and it bit me and then I hated my life again. (Marianne, seriously, what is Kobe's deal?!?)
16. I called the dealership to see how hard it is to get a new key. We would have to tow the truck to them and then they could make a key. "When do you close?" I asked. "Five," he replied. It was 4:50.
17. Back to the house to do a massive key search. We searched the gigantic outside garbage can. Piece by piece. Literally touched every piece of garbage in that disgusting thing. We went over to my friend's house and looked all around her place in case the key had fallen out then. No key. We turned the house upside down, looked in absolute ludicrous places like washers and freezers and under the deck and in the sandbox and everywhere our imagination could take us. No key.
18. At 7:00 I officially resigned myself to ever finding the key. It would never be recovered and I was closing that chapter. I was extremely frustrated with the whole debacle as I do believe it was totally my fault. I had taken the key from Greg to load the cab of the truck. As far as I can remember, I put the key in my pocket, but my pockets were not deep at all. It could have fallen out anywhere. This is one of the things that frustrates me the most about myself- how absent minded I can be and how I can set something down without having any memory of it. This is
not the first time I have about lost my mind over a set of keys.
19. We got back to our new apartment at 8:00 and began the real unpacking. About 1:00 am I could not move one more muscle and passed out.
20. Church at 8:30 am today which is a complete and utter shock to me. I have never ever ever been to a Mormon ward that starts earlier than 9:00. Mormons are notorious for being late- how somebody had the audacity to set church at 8:30 in our new neighborhood is beyond me. Church was the highlight of the whole weekend- a few hours of peace and calm and assurance that everything will turn out okay. These are the weeks that I think I should just bag church and do the more practical stuff that is weighing so heavy upon me, but a couple of hours worshipping God put everything back into perspective for me.
21. Greg asked his friend, Jake, if we could borrow his truck a second time. It was clear now that we would not be finding the key to my brother's truck, but still needed to move the couches. So, we went back down to Provo to trade trucks. Only guess what had happened? Jake had locked his keys in his truck, something he said he was never ever done in his life. Am I contagious?
22. Nice policeman came and opened up Jake's truck. Hallelujah!
23. Took the truck back to get the couches. My brother was there and kinder than you can imagine a person being when his little sister has borrowed his truck and lost his key and now the truck is stuck in the driveway. I was seriously amazed at how sweet he was about the whole thing, telling me that "these things happen." Yes, these things do happen, but why do they seem to happen so often with me?
24. We moved the couches, my mom fed us a dinner that was heaven sent, and we headed back up to our apartment to unload the couches.
25. By the time we were back up to Lehi we were completely exhausted and it was after 6:00. I was determined, though, to go to
Shelbey's viewing as I knew I wouldn't be able to make the funeral on Monday. I debated and debated about going- telling myself that no one would expect me at the viewing and that I certainly didn't need to feel obligated to go. But then I thought about all the people that came to my dad's viewing, and how much it meant to my family to have them there. I thought about my dad's friend who made the enormous effort to fly in from Hong Kong for the funeral and how that and the efforts of many others moved us to tears. I felt a deep and almost tangible heartbreak, but somehow seeing those who had come to share in the grief alleviated mine a bit. Like they were doing the grieving for me. Or at least not making me do it alone. People came out of the woodworks for my dad's funeral. People we never knew he knew. People's whose lives he had touched. It was an incredible source of strength and power and joy to feel all the love that people had for my dad. Remembering all of this, I knew I had to make it to Shelbey's viewing no matter what, if nothing else to give back to the people who made efforts to get to my dad's viewing.
26. We now had Jake's truck in our possession which needed to be returned and I was short on time to get to Shelbey's viewing before it was over. Greg said he would take Jake's truck back to Provo without me so I could make the 30 minute drive out to West Jordan for the viewing. I said thank you, you are wonderful I love you.
27. I left the house at 6:40, donning a skirt and even putting some makeup on for the first time in 48 hours.
28. Ten minutes away from the viewing Greg called me. He had dropped off the truck but was now locked out of the apartment and I had a key. We snapped at each other and tried to find someone to blame for why the door was locked and why Greg didn't know I was leaving and why Greg didn't have his key on him. I told him I was still going to the viewing and he would just have to wait for me.
29. When I got to the viewing the line spiraled and looped all the way around the church. I knew the wait would be at least an hour, if not two. Somehow this is where it all the walls came tumbling down. I couldn't keep Greg waiting for an hour and a half, sitting in his car outside our apartment. Did I even have the energy to wait an hour in this line? I certainly wouldn't be able to drive 30 minutes back to the apartment to give the key to Greg and 30 minutes back out to West Jordan and THEN wait for an hour. So I folded. Laid my cards down on the table and folded. I snuck around the church the other way to where the casket was and said my goodbye to Shelbey. She didn't look a thing like the Shelbey I remember and maybe that made it easier for me. I wanted so badly to say something to her parents, but knew it was disrespectful to the people who had waited hours in line, so I mentally sent them my love and left.
30. On the way home I lost it. The stress, the exhaustion, and the emotional weight of the weekend was too heavy. I just cried and cried. They weren't tears of panic this time, but tears of frustration and exhaustion and sorrow at the unfairness in the world. Unfair that Shelbey is gone at 19 and that her parents have to bury her instead of her grandchildren. Greg called and apologized for being snappy earlier on the phone, I likewise apologized, and then mostly there were indiscernible sobs. I felt like such a failure for not being there for Shelbey's parents and wondered why the universe wasn't making this easier on me. I had made a big effort to do something good in the world, shouldn't there be some kind of "your husband doesn't get locked out of the apartment when you are trying to do good" rule?
31. I came home and tried to get my mind off of everything by making sense of a campaign I am doing for my blog. Blogging is so great, but sometimes the commercial side of it wears me out. I am so fortunate to have the opportunities I do with blogging, but try hard not to over commit myself or stretch myself too thin. Lately I have felt like I am doing both. After studying the campaign a little more, I felt better about accepting it, and better about writing a post on it later in the week. (Hint: It's for
sparkling water. So, kind of like champagne for fit people. Or Mormons.)
32. And that, my friends, is how I ended up here at 10:00 on a Sunday night. (Now 10:57.) School will come early in the morning but the weekend has been so stressful and exhausting that teaching 100s of teenagers sounds amazing right now. I am so grateful for my job and for those little big tikes.
33. I lay down with Greg for a minute on the bed and asked him, "I know this weekend has been straight up hell, but what was your happiest moment in it all?" I love to ask Greg his "happy moments" and to think of my "happy moments." They are certainly there- whether I choose to recognize it or not. "Eating French fries with you and Jake after we got everything moved into the apartment yesterday." Greg replied. "Really?" I said, shocked. It was such an ordinary moment. "Yah, that was perfect for me," he answered. Pretty simple, but still. Happy.
My happy moments:
- When my brother sent me a text saying we would get everything figured out with the key and not to worry about it. Feeling his love and support even though I totally messed up.
- Watching Greg hold a baby at the family reunion.
- Seeing my niece, Josie, wearing the cutest swimsuit ever made at the reunion. Why are toddlers' little bellies so stinking cute?
- My mom telling me that she had gone through all the garbage looking through the key. I was absolute floored and humbled by the extent of her willingness to help.
- When a neighbor offered to help Greg carry the couch up the stairs so I didn't have to help him.
- Church and feeling safe and loved and like I belong.
- Seeing Shelbey's lifeless body and feeling so much pain at her death, but also in the knowledge I have that
her family will see her again.
That's a wrap! Sorry for the horrifically long post. Matches my weekend, I suppose.
