ring cycle: the wall

The next part is the hard part. In a week comes the move and the place becomes this medium sized building I'll haunt and try to make into a home. As funny as it sounds, I've only considered the place just someplace I'm staying at up until this point. Sure, I've mowed the lawn (and bitched about it), I've raked the leaves (and bitched about it) and I've hauled trash the curb (then bitched at the garbage pickup company when they drove on by), but where we've been has been a kind of holding pattern.

It's hard to think of yourself entirely as a bachelor when you're former wife is sleeping down the hall.

Next week, we pass through that wall, the one we can barely see over and I'm thinking a lot about it as this ending/beginning draws closer.

I've received lots of interesting advice about what I should do --after. One friend has suggested what I really need is to have a fling. I think she's thinking I might be hung up about sex or trapped by certain attachments to sex and love as conditioning because I've been in a monogamous relationship for ten years.

Of course, the message also might be that I need to lighten up, get laid and relax.

Others are willing to help me shop for furniture for my new place. A few have offered to help me get away for a couple of days. I've been presented with a whole range of opportunities for diversion.

And I don't know what to choose.

More than a few people have expressed concern. They're worried I'm going to turn into an emotional cripple, become a shut-in or maybe just flip out.

I think I'll be okay, but I'm looking at that wall. I'm looking at next week and feeling the days crumbling into one another. It's going fast and I know that I do not want to be there when that first round of possessions goes out the door.

So, I'm not going to be.

Beyond that, once the dust has settled, I just want to settle in. I like the roller derby people. Maybe I'll hang out with them a little. Their devotion to profanity is kind of liberating. When Hospice gets back to me, I'll do those classes in October. I will drive for the American Cancer Society. I will spend as much time as I can with my kids. I will write letters to my 89-year-old grandmother and maybe not tell her that her grandson is single again. I don't know how she'd feel about that.

I will write more. My muse over and over is my own gallows humor at my predicament.

I will take care of my cats. I will buy something from Ian Bode to put on my walls because I like his work and much of what he does makes me smile and cry a little at the same time. When I have a table and chairs I will invite some friends over... eventually... if the house doesn't feel so creepy.

I will go see "The Shining" at Park Place Cinemas and visit White Castle the week of Thanksgiving. That's as far as I'm willing to think and that has to be enough for now. That's as far as I can see past the trees and into the distance. The rest is cloudy, not frightening, just obscured.