My Life Is in Ruins

It’s been seven days since the movers were here, and I’ve had my first really bad day.  I had allowed myself to believe that I wouldn’t have any more days like this; now it seems that moving to Denver isn’t going to be a complete cure.

Yesterday I went to Super Target and filled a cart with things I needed for the apartment:  a tension rod with selves for the bathtub; dishes for salads and pasta, which I have been needing for a while; a shredder; a doormat for my balcony; a beverage dispenser to replace a cracked pitcher.  I looked at thermal curtain panels and area rugs, tried to find some big latte cups.  I came home, made meatloaf for dinner, and watched My Life in Ruins.

The movie was my mistake.  Richard Dreyfuss played “Irv,” a tourist taking his first vacation since his wife’s death three years before.  In a scene at the beach, Irv is sitting by himself thinking about his wife when she appears.  He tells her that she’s made him wait too long to join her.  Moments later (in the movie) he’s discovered unconscious in the sand.

Today I went out again to try to find the things I hadn’t found at Super Target.  I should have known better than to attempt a second all-day shopping trip.  As I felt myself getting tired, and with nothing in my cart, finally gave up and came home.  I collapsed into my chair and sobbed for a while, thinking about how hard it is to get through every day without Hal, wondering if a day will come when he’ll suddenly appear at my side, and I will know that I don’t have to suffer any more.

I slept for 3 hours, ate leftover meatloaf, watched the movie again and wept during the beach scene.  In the movie, Irv doesn’t die, but I suspect that in the original script, he did.  I think that the director thought Irv’s death would be too sad for what was supposed to be a light-hearted comedy.  But the way I see it, Irv was cheated out of the chance to join his wife.

I’ll never watch that movie again.

Settling In

I’m not quite ready to welcome visitors to my new apartment in Denver, but I hope to do so by the weekend.

The movers were here on Sunday, staying until about 6pm in order to empty every cardboard box and take it downstairs to the dumpster for me.  The last time I moved, dealing with the boxes was the most difficult part.  This time I promised myself that I would let the movers do more of the work, that I would stay out of their way so I wasn’t as exhausted at the end of the day.  Unfortunately, I slipped on some ice as the truck was backing up to my apartment door, badly bruising one knee.

After the movers left, I was too tired and my knee too sore to do much more than microwave some chicken soup and sleep fully clothed in my recliner.  The next night I was able to sleep in my own bed.  As of this morning (Wednesday), I have cable TV, a phone and Internet access, but haven’t yet figured out how to create a wireless network so I can set my laptop on my desk across the room without a cable snaking across the floor.  I hope to get that done today before I see a doctor about my knee.

I also hope to be able to cook a real meal in my own kitchen.

I’ve spent the first week after arriving in Colorado wondering if I didn’t make a mistake in thinking that coming here will help me start my life over.  However, now that I have my own things, I’m feeling better about the move.  With Christmas coming, I’ve decided to spend the rest of the month just settling in, spending the holiday with my sister and her kids and getting a plan together so I can avoid spending time and mental energy on anything but writing.  My “writing retreat” will start on the 1st of January.

Now that the cold snap is over, the weather in Colorado is everything my sister said it is.  The low humidity makes 45 degrees feel like 65 degrees.  The mountains are always visible in the west and always beautiful.  As I fall asleep at night, I can the whistle of distant trains.

Waiting

When I was preparing to move to Colorado from Virginia, I worried that I would be held up by an early snowstorm, forced to sit in a hotel for day–perhaps longer–while I waited for I-70 to reopen.  I worried that I would be on the road when a snowstorm hit, causing me to have an accident or forcing me to pull over and wait to be rescued.  My truck was filled with cat litter, space blankets, emergency flashers and chemical hand warmers.  fortunately, I didn’t need any of these things; I only experienced a flurry or two and arrived in Denver exactly when I planned.

It never occurred to me that my furniture wouldn’t be as lucky.  A snowstorm swept across the country, putting not only Denver under a couple of feet of snow, but New Jersey as well.  I hoped to get my furniture on December 7, 3 days after arriving in town, but the truck hadn’t even started driving west.  It looks like I’ll get my furniture this Sunday, 6 days late.

What’s worrying me the most, however, is that after talking to the driver, it seems that he’s determined to simply drop off my belongings and leave, although I have paid to have him and his partner unpack for me as well.  The last time I moved, back in May, the unpacking process was a nightmare; I fell into bed each night crying from exhaustion and pain from my arthritic knees and getting the empty boxes out of the apartment and into the trash compactor was an ordeal.  I saw my doctor not long afterward, thinking there was something wrong with me because I seemed always to be tired.  It took a full week of lying in my recliner watching television and napping to recover from moving in.

I’ll have to be stubborn, I think, if I want the movers to unpack and take the boxes with them.  I’ll have to make threats and be ready to call their bosses.  I may have to cry–I hate having to resort to that, but it almost always works.

In any case, I can’t think of a more pleasant place to wait than my sister’s house.  I’m especially enjoying the kids.  Every day, after the kids go to school and my sister and brother-in-law go to work, I make my way to Denver to do some of the things I thought I would be doing after I moved into my apartment.  I already have my truck retitled (I had to pass an emissions test) and will get my new driver’s license in the mail soon.  I bought my first lottery tickets and have my loyalty cards for the nearest grocery stores, King Soopers and Safeway.

I was not as prepared for the weather here as I had hoped.  A few days ago I went to Kohl’s and bought a new winter hat and gloves for myself as well as a wear-over-everything sweater and a better pair of snow boots (the Timberlands I bought in Virginia were too heavy and hurt my shins).  I also found that whatever fluid the mechanic put in my windshield washer reservoir wasn’t adequate to the temperature, which has dipped to below zero more than once, allowing the fluid to freeze and preventing me from cleaning the road grime off my windshield.  I had to pull over at a gas station mid-trip each time I went out to use their squeegee.  One of my first purchases was the right product, and now I’m washing my windshield as often as possible so the old fluid will be used up and the new fluid will find its way to my windshield.

I’m getting used to the idea of living here.  On the drive out, I often cried myself to sleep, afraid that I was making a terrible mistake, afraid that I would hate my apartment, hate my neighborhood, hate Denver and Colorado.  I was afraid that I wouldn’t make any friends and would be even lonelier than I was in Virginia.  However, I’m convinced that once I get my furniture and have settled into my new home, once I get caught up on the television I missed, after I cook my first few meals in my own kitchen, I can try getting through my days without anti-anxiety medication.

I’m missing my friends in Virginia.