Friday, May 12, 2023
Friday started before Thursday was done, really. These diaries always seem to come when I’m doing something out of the ordinary, although maybe that just means that out of the ordinary is just my ordinary? 12am mountain time/2am eastern, I’d just landed in Boise and was walking through the airport to get my luggage. This is my first trip home since the summer-o-hell last year, and it was so nice to be back. I was getting teary the whole flight, and I really thought I’d cry when I saw my parents (who so graciously stayed up WAY past their bedtime to pick me up), but I think I was too tired by that point. My mom got a little teary though. When I left last summer, I really expected that I would be moving back west within a year, but my life took another, completely unexpected and unplanned turn, which brings me to why I’m in Idaho again in the first place. I came for my family to meet my new partner! Let me back up …
When I finally told my then-husband that I wanted a divorce, it had been a very long time coming – years – and I had done so much therapy and work to even get to the point of asking for a divorce that I had done most of the work you’d expect someone to do post-divorce. I’d grieved that marriage before it was actually over, so divorcing was just official ending to something that been over for at least 5 years, if not significantly longer. So, in September, I decided to try dating via “the apps” (which is a whole other headtrip for someone who last dated when Napster was the biggest thing on the internet. It’s like online shopping for people – very weird). Eventually I made an exception to my “no (insert ex-husband’s name here)” rule, and fast forward 6 months, we live together, I just celebrated my first Mother’s Day (he has 2 daughters, L who is 9 and O who is almost 8), I’m friends with his ex-wife and her new family, and we’re building a house on the 4.25 acres of land we just bought. It’s definitely been a whirlwind 6 months – sometimes it’s hard to wrap my head around how different my life is today than a year ago, but even with all the shit of the last year, I’m happy. This is the life I’ve always wanted, with a partner who is emotionally available.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t things that are hard, of course. It was really hard to leave Muncie, for example. I worked so hard over the last 6 years to develop a strong network of support and to contribute to the larger community, and I was sad to leave that behind. I needed to sell my house after the divorce, though, and my currently partner lives in the Indy area. It just didn’t make any sense to stay in Muncie when I was spending most of my time with him and the girls anyway, and it didn’t make sense to move somewhere closer to him but not with him when we both felt like this was the relationship we wanted.
So, that mostly brings you up to speed. Now we’re in Idaho visiting my family for the first time. M met my parents last night at the airport, and we’re going out to my brother’s farm this afternoon to “drink beer and watch the kids play in the water” (according to my SIL’s text). Should be fun!! Unfortunately, M does have to work a little bit today, but then should be free the rest of the trip!
830am: wake up, sadly. We didn’t get into the Air B&B until after 1 last night, but we’re still on eastern time, so it’s hard to sleep in too much. First things first – I have to go to Albertson’s for some coffee and provisions for the week. What Air B&B doesn’t have coffee??! This place isn’t the best, but we decided to save money rather than get the nicest place – you know, building a house and all. It’s a fine place – thoroughly and completely fine.
845-930: Luckily Albertson’s is just down the street, so it was a quick trip. I got coffee, stuff for breakfast, and beer. You know, all the basics!! LOL.
930-1130: M is working now, so I’m just lounging around, eating breakfast, drinking coffee, wasting time on my phone. Well, maybe not wasting – I’ve been spending a lot of time on Pinterest looking at house stuff. We’re almost done picking everything, but we still have a couple of things to finish picking out, like lighting and hardware. The idea of building a house is so romantic – it seems like something that everyone wants to do – but Oh. My. God. There is a so much to decide!! It gets real old, real quick. It’s so hard to envision how everything is going to go together and if it will look good or really, really stupid. And then all the upgrades you might want, and what’s worth the money or not. We really want to make sustainable, green decisions for the house, but they are SOOOOO expensive! Ugh. It’s not romantic at all – it’s exhausting. I think I might take a nap actually …
11:30-12:30: Awwww … nap … what a great way to start vacation!
1-9:30pm: My brother’s farm. It was so fun to see everyone but exhausting with 6 kiddos!! When we got there, J was outside and came running up to see us. She’s gotten so tall!! She was in her usual style of totally not matching, and now she has teal and purple hair, so it’s even more her style! The girls are going to love her! I can’t wait for them to all meet! As we were going to into the house, one of their bummer lambs, Petunia, came sprinting up to us to say hello. Actually, I think she was saying something more like, “hey humans, give me food,” but hello is close enough. It was cute.
When we went inside, Little A was in the mudroom to greet us. He was good with M at first but turned shy for about 10 minutes after R decided she was afraid of M. Apparently that’s what she does to new people. They both got over it really quickly though, and before I knew it, Little A was smacking M’s butt for some unknown reason! LOL! The joys of 4-year-olds.
M met everyone fairly quickly, and we stood around and chatted for a few minutes before he went up to my brother’s office to work for a couple of hours. We rest of us went outside to enjoy the beautiful day. We sat in the front yard, which is huge so the kids could play in the water (sprinklers and a pool) very far away from us and not get us – or our beers – wet. With that many kids around, it seems like someone is always crying or upset about something. The thing that sticks out the most in my mind was about an hour into the water playing, my 6-year-old nephew, E, was upset about something, so he’s staying in the middle of the pool, soaking wet in his swim trunks, on a beautiful day with kids around playing, and tears streaming down his face – he looks directly at us, and cries (holding his hands up to make a zero), “I AM HAVING ZERO FUN!!” I tried so hard not to laugh, but it was impossible. That kid has the biggest emotions! I love him.
Shortly after that, some of the kids decided I needed lilac blossoms in my hair, but instead of just picking a couple of sprigs for me, they broke off entire (small) branches and stuck them in my hair. Around that time, M was done with work and came down. Petunia saw him and trotted over, so J got her bottle and M got to feed her. It was pretty cute. Then it was clearly time to walk the farm and see the goats, so we got on boots and headed out. The first stop was to see Eówen’s grave. She was their puppy – I spent so much time with her last summer. She went in to be spayed in January, and her heart stopped. She was only a year old. It was really crushing, especially given all the shit they’ve already been through this last year. They have a nice place for her under the willow – it’s peaceful and beautiful there. It made me sad all over again to see her grave – she was such a good pups!!
We found the goats down in the swamp grass. They have 22 kids this year! SOOOO many!! The thing I love about goats (over sheep) is that they are so friendly! Other than Petunia, all the sheep ran away from us, but all the goats, babies and adults, ran up to us. Of course, that has its downsides when they decide to jump up for face kisses and get shit all over your shorts, literally. It’s a small price to pay for goat kisses though!! 🙂
We walked to the back part of the property to see S’s fort and check on how the bugs and animals were doing to help Dream’s body decompose (she was their oldest goat who died this winter; they put her in the back pasture to decompose because Big A wants to keep her skull if she can – Dream had really cool horns and she was a special goat on the farm). When we got to S’s fort, I noticed a bee swarm in one of the trees and another one in the ground a little ways away – it was SO cool!! So many bees!! They’ll need to get a beekeeper out to move the colony, but we got a pretty close look in the meantime. A little further on was Dream’s corpse, largely decomposed, but not entirely yet. It sounds morbid, I’m sure, but it was pretty cool too. Death is part of life. There isn’t really a reason to be so weird and scared of it – that’s what I think anyway.
It was 5ish by the time we were done with the farm walk, and since it was Friday, that night was family movie night. We took some of the kids to the grocery store to get some snacks for the movie. The closest store is actually across the border in Oregon, so M gets to say he’s been to Oregon too!! This is the furthest west he’s ever been by far, which is kinda fun! I’m a complete pushover, so anything the kids wanted for snacks, they got. Candy, chips, ice cream, soda. I’m sure B and Big A were thrilled with me! Ha! Big A made corndogs for dinner – I hadn’t had corndogs in ages, and they were stupidly good. I had 3. Ha! After dinner we watched Detective Pikachu and R kept bringing us candy to eat. When we said we didn’t want it, she’d stuff it in her pockets – they were completely bulging by the end of the night!
We finally headed back to the Air B&B around 9, where we watched old episodes of the Price Is Right for an hour and got to bed around 11. A long day, but so much fun to see everyone and be in the chaos again. I’ve really missed them all. Tomorrow we’re heading north with my parents so M can see REAL mountains for the first time!! Fingers crossed that goes well!!