31. (Not) Living the fairy tale

It’s been three months to the day since we fully moved into our new house. I wish I could say my silence on this blog has been entirely due to unpacking boxes and furnishing our new abode, but it hasn’t. The beginning of August should have been the last chapter in the fairy tale of finding a home, settling into our dream house. 

But it wasn’t.

First, there was the hellish move itself, which we did entirely ourselves, save a couple of hours with a hired u-haul and two movers. Never fun, especially with three motorcycles, a shop full of tools and equipment, a large washer and dryer, a TON of heavy antique furniture, and a ridiculous amount of books (22 boxes we counted, give or take).

Then there was the situation with our landlady. Once we announced we weren’t staying for the next year, she got a bit prickly. We did all we could to advertise for her, and indeed, we believe our advertising was what got her a renter to move in August 1. She was so excited to get the new occupant in, she did everything she could to kick us out several days early. We agreed to move out early if the rent would be prorated. She refused. We decided to then take our time; we felt we were already being gracious by getting out two days before the new lease started, and we were stressed to the maximum by all the details of our closing. Unfortunately, we accidentally did some damage to the less-than-durable vinyl flooring with our washing machine while moving out; she decided to take the cost of replacement of all the vinyl flooring in the house out of our deposit. More than losing money, though, I hate losing friendships. We weren’t close, but she had been so helpful when we first moved here, and I’m sad to have the relationship soured by business. 

And that was just the beginning of our expenses. The roof needed to be vented. There were garden hoses to buy and hooks and rugs and hangers and more cleaning supplies and bins for organizing and laundry hampers and garbage cans. There were trees we wanted to plant and landscaping to fill in the back. And in between there were bills for car repair, bills for junk removal from our lot, ridiculous water bills before we knew about the leak in our sprinkler system. There were the usual doctor bill and dentist bills too, of course.

And then my sweet old Volvo wagon started to go south, with everything going wrong at once--ABS, brakes, cruise control….and all this after major repair bills almost monthly for the previous year. So I bit the bullet, so to speak, and bought a little midlife crisis car. Her name is Vivienne. (and yes, photos are forthcoming; Vivi is a bit camera-shy).

And most recently, after several heavy rains, the smell of mold started wafting up from our crawl space. More bills for mold testing, an estimate for remediation, two separate visits from plumbers to find an unfindable leak which started the mold problem. A seemingly infinite number of phone calls and emails with our insurance agent. And, then, of course, if by some miracle our insurance covers it, there will be the deductible to pay. Sigh.

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But the cost of moving did not just hit our pocketbooks. Oh, would that it had. No, the dearest cost was to the one we hold most dear. Our son.

He had had an idyllic summer, working as a camp counselor back home in Illinois. He ran around with his old pals, and made new pals. He came home on a two-week break in July just in time to help us pack and move, then went back to camp for his final week of work. Upon his return home, I could detect a change in him. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to talk to us. He holed up in his new room, but didn’t want to set up his bed or decorate his walls. His posters stayed on the floor. He kept his clothes in a box. He spent hours on the computer, gaming and Skyping with friends back in Illinois. I thought, give him time. Let school start, let him see his friends from last year. It will be OK, I told myself. After school started, I took Vivi to Amarillo, Texas to visit a friend, and then we continued on to Santa Fe for a weekend of opera and sightseeing. 

Sunset as backdrop for the Santa Fe opera La Bohème

And when I returned on Monday I realized that it was not OK. My son couldn’t seem to leave his room. He couldn’t seem to do anything but sleep. And game. And sleep some more.

My son looks a lot like my father when he was younger. He seems to have inherited his strong chin line, his handsome smile, his height, his blue eyes. 

But he didn’t just inherit my dad’s physique; he seems to also have inherited his propensity for depression. I’d rather it was just the blue eyes and smile, but we don’t have a choice in these matters. So, we have to take it as it comes. I don’t know when he started feeling this way, but I suspect it’s been a long time; it’s hard to get him to speak about these things. But it’s been lurking like that mold in our crawl space, waiting for the perfect moment to blossom. So in August when my son realized that our pictures were going on the walls, furniture and dishes we hadn’t seen in a year were being unpacked, and kitchen remodeling plans were underway in our new house, I suspect that a part of him finally realized that our move here was permanent. We weren’t just staying here temporarily and moving back to Illinois. This was our new home. And it overwhelmed him, angered him, saddened him. He fell behind in school. He racked up absences to the point the school called and arranged a homebound program for him. We saw doctors, therapists, school principals. We got as much help for him as we could; I was counting on early and strong intervention to save him, quite literally. And slowly, slowly, slowly he’s been coming back. He went back to school a few weeks ago, and seemed surprised to find out his peers and teachers had actually missed him in class. This past weekend was Semi-Formal, the fall dance at his high school. He’s finally connected with a group of friends here and they spent most of the weekend together. We took pictures of all of them in their finery against a backdrop of Oklahoma landscape in the setting October sun. It’s not all back to normal yet, and there will be school credits to make up, and some down days still to get through, but it is better. And the heartbreak we feel as parents watching our kid struggle is somewhat assuaged as things continue to improve.

So, if you were looking for lots of before-and-after photos of our house, sorry to disappoint this time. (I offer one, my copy of the Madonna della Seggiola which is finally hanging in our living room. I’m hoping that her looking down on us is an omen for better things to come.) For now, I’m content to look at the photos of my son and his friends, as I can finally see a light in his eyes.