For Rent

Today I drove up to my apartment door to find the Westside Rentals "For Rent" sign had been put up by our landlord. Which, of course, makes sense. I'm leaving at the end of the month, and despite all my pleading none of our friends volunteered to take the apartment. So Landlord has to find new tenants. All perfectly logical.

But logic is hardly what I felt when I saw it. Inexplicable surprise and sadness swept over me instead. Of course I knew this apartment would go to someone else, I just always pictured that happening after I'd already gone. Then I could imagine it was still there, empty, waiting for us to come back and claim it. But this....well this was not in the plans.

While Landlord has not yet called to tell me that prospective tenants are coming to look at the place, the possibility hangs over me, elbowing in on my last days. Can't I just pretend a bit longer?

It's sort of like ending a relationship. Yes, I was the one who called it quits, and yes, you have a right to go on to find someone else. But do I really need to hear about it?

The In-Between

Drew has been gone for a little over 2 weeks, and in that time quite a bit has happened. He started his job, found us a new apartment and met half of Dallas. I packed up half the house, met with florists, cake designers and videographers, and worked my regular 9 to 5 gig. Busy weeks with lots of action. And we're not even halfway there. There's still plenty to do on both ends, and lots of time to miss each other.

While Drew is starting his new life in Dallas, he's unable to make it all the way. He's found a new apartment and will be moving in soon, but will have to make do with an inflatable mattress and paper plates until I (and our furniture) get there. And while I have physical custody of the remaining kitchen wares, most of those have been packed in boxes and are outside of my reach. So we're neither here nor there. We're in the In-Between.

As much as I am going into this move kicking and screaming, I was surprised to hear myself this morning tell someone I wished I was already there. Not because I'm anxious to leave my life here in Los Angeles, but because I feel like I want to start the new one already. The being here, the waiting, the packing in stages, the having separate lives.....it's not nearly as easily manageable in practice as it seemed in theory. And I'm impatient for the moment when I can unpack the things my mom and I have so gingerly placed in bubble wrap and newspaper. When I can have access to more than one pair of sheets. When I can cook in my kitchen again. When I---WE--can start this life we've been talking about and preparing for for what seems like so long.

I'm sick of the In-Between.