Chapter 1

Hello! How have you been? Seems like ages, doesn’t it? A great deal has been going on. If you’re in a hurry, here’s the gist: I’m doing quite well.

Today is the first day I’ve touched a proper keyboard in about a week. I have painted, packed, unpacked, painted some more. I have bruises I find it best to cover up — there’s a right nasty one on my arm from when I lifted the Christmas tree box up to the top shelf of the front closet. Perhaps that’s why they recommend lifting it with another person…

The paint is out of my hair and clothes, but my toenails are hanging onto it. Tough break for last week’s lunchtime pedicure, but that’s as good a reason as any to try out the nail salon beneath my building.

I’m thrilled with the colors and highly recommend Benjamin Moore paints. That said, my walls are old and thirsty and I ended up needing an extra quart for the living room and a gallon for my bedroom, where I needed to finish two small walls and do a second coat. It’s a sort of deep clay color and the first coat just looked uneven, but now it’s perfect. Totally clashes with the quilt I’m using in lieu of a comforter, but that was foreseeable.

The living room is dark chocolate brown with sort of a sueded look, and the dining area is a sort of dusty cabernet. For these and my bedroom, I wanted colors that could take a lot of natural and lamp light and still feel warm and inviting.

The guest room, aka “craft room,” is a buttery yellow. Yellow’s just so cheerful and pleasant — not all the rooms have to be somber and serious.

(I HAVE A CRAFT ROOM!)

The hallway and entryway are a totally different white than they were before. The difference is subtle, although not subtle enough that I can use the same paint to cover the blotches I made on the ceilings when doing the trim. (Alicia is better at the trim. I bow before her mad edging skillz.)

Chapter 2

In the midst of all this, I have had support from all sides. The friends I have here are amazing — you’d think they’d been around forever, the way they take care of me. There isn’t much I can’t say or show to them.

This goes for Teddy, my friends’ puppy, as well. She takes very, very good care of me, and we spent some quality time together when I stayed at their place last weekend. There isn’t much that can’t be soothed by petting a puppy.

I was also fortunate to get to spend some time with Jon, who was here for a conference at just the right time. Having to attend a conference got him out of painting, but we got to spend two evenings reconnecting. He left reassured, I think, that I am in a better place than I was when I visited his family in September. He’s known me half my life, but this is the first time in about seven years that he’s really seen me acting like myself again.

As I said, support has come from all sides. There were some folks on my “friends and family” list who hadn’t heard a peep from me since I got married, if then. Hearing from them has had a tremendous effect on me — it’s humbling, sometimes, to realize the power love has to carry over years and transcend even the darkest moments between people who share long histories. A reckoning for the dark moments will surely come due, but, in the end, some friendships are for always.

Some people just feel like home.

Chapter 3

Hello, skinny jeans. Long time no see. 😉