Oct 27, 2013

Preach it, brother Jay

I've been slowly working through the backlog in Feedly and doing a lot of skimming and "mark read". Just too much to get through. Then I came upon this one from Jay, which hit me hard in the gut.
One of the downsides of being apart from your family is that you feel utterly helpless when something happens. Got a call from Mrs. G. yesterday that BabyGirl G. fell in gym class and hit her head - she's fine, but had a possible concussion so they needed her to be picked up.

I've been in Missouri since June 16. Four months plus a bit.

MrsZ came out on the Independence Day weekend with a truckload of our stuff, and flew home the next day.

My parents gifted us a plane ticket for our anniversary, and she was out for a few days last week.

It has been harder than I ever believed to be here without my partner in life. We text daily, call every few days or so (neither of us is much of a phone person), and email constantly. We've been writing real paper snail-mail letters back and forth.

She has had to deal with a whole lot of stuff that just didn't get done in the four weeks between the job offer and my moving date. My folks have stepped up in ways I can't begin to thank them for, and generally helped out with the few things that MrsZ hasn't been able to handle alone.

I hate that I'm not there to help with or just handle these things. Things like the possum tangled in the fence (thanks, Dad), or the house winterizing. Or mowing the lawn, or fixing the lawn tractor when it ate its belt. Just... life. And I'm not there.

Our house is still on the market (almost four months now) with a depressingly low number of showings, and no offers. Our agent has been ... "apathetic" is the most accurate term I can come up with. The contract with him expires at midnight on 12/31. If the house isn't gone by then, we're going to re-evaluate what we want to do. Option one is to re-sign for another four- or six-month term. Another is to take it off the market for 2-3 months and re-list in March or so, to hit the early market season with a "days on market" of 0.

I'm thrilled for Jay - he's got a great new gig, and his house has already got a buyer. I'm also a bit envious, but our real estate market is different from his. It's been a test for us, and one we're doing alright with.

(And if you didn't click through above, BabyGirl G is fine.)

3 comments:

Borepatch said...

You'll like having those snailmail letters in 20 years. The emails and texts will be long gone but those will be memories you can hold.

Old NFO said...

Never easy, and imagine going through that separation every 18 months or so for 6-9 months at a time... Hopefully you get a sale SOON and are reunited as a family SOON!!!

Home on the Range said...

I can't believe it's been that long since your bride came through with the trailer in the wee hours and crashed at my place. Hang in there. I understand the house issue, the original Range took a while to sell, while I slept on friends couches so Barkley wasn't there scaring off the walk throughs. It will happen. We're still enjoying the whisky you bought us and toasted the wedding with some. Thank you, my friend.