Things are coming together. I have a schedule. I should be able to put the house up on the market in about 2 weeks. I have nearly everything upstairs packed up that doesn’t need to go with me to the transition apartment. I have just the kitchen stuff to go through now, and squirrel away what I don’t need. From here, I’ll shift everything into the garage and eventually into storage, and then ‘stage’ my house as best as I can. Primarily this includes turning the ‘den’ back into a den and not an extension of my kitchen, the way it has been.
It’s been…an interesting exercise. To say the least. There’s the melancholy duty of going through my things with a very different moving mindset. You know, typically there’s the “have I used this in the last year? Do I really need this?” sorting, but mine’s had an additional “Am I ever going to use this again, and do I want to keep it anyway for sentimental purposes and have my family have to throw it away later?” There’s a fine walking line between “center circle, bitches! Keep ALL THE THINGS! It’s not my problem to deal with it later, I’ll be DEAD!” and “my death’s hard enough business for them, I should make it easier as much as I can”. I don’t want to sacrifice my current enjoyment of life in the interest of making things easier when I’m gone. But at the expense of a little time now, I can save grief later. It’s a hard business, going through someone’s things when they’re gone. So much crap, so many things important to me that are meaningless to anyone else. Do I let them go now? Or do I keep them, even though I know I’ll never look at them again and in all probability they’ll stay here in this box until someone throws them away.
There’s a sort of freedom that comes with this, too, a relief of obligation. I don’t have to hold on to this anymore. There’s no reason. I can give this up, it’s okay.
But the kitchen.
I had such plans, and dreams, and schemes. A professional workbench, a partitioned off section for chocolatiering, baker’s racks for projects..
and now I can’t. Because I know damned WELL I’m never going to be able to do that stuff. I can still bake, for now, and make candy, but nowhere near on the scale I wanted to. So in going through my kitchen gear, there’s the extra bitter edge to it. “Am I going to use this ever again?” “NO. Because I CAN’T. And that is SUPER SHITTY.” It’s the second major physical concession I’ve had to make, the first being the sale of the house in the first place. But I know there’s no point to outfitting my new kitchen like a professional workspace, because I’ll never be able to use it to its capacity. And that sucks.
BUT!
It also means I am no longer obligated to bring the cake.
“Oh we don’t need a Safeway cake or anything, Vashti can make one.”
“Um. I’m kinda busy that weekend, though. I’m not sure I’ll have the time.”
“Well, I guess we can just grab one from Costco.”
“FUCK THAT I WILL MAKE YOU A CAKE. Such a cake you will never have SEEN. Because FUCK Costco cake.”
It also means no more random experiments like the Meatcake, at least not as frequently as I did. That might be better for humanity. No one should wield that kind of power.
So this weekend I hope to finish packing up the kitchen unneededs. Over this coming week I’ll finish up my office and everything upstairs. Next weekend staging. And then…put the house on the market and see what happens. I don’t expect to have problems selling. Hopefully I won’t have problems finding a temporary apartment. Or a new home.
Right now, though, I’d like to find a nap.