Coming at you this afternoon as an official resident of Wisconsin once again. My mom and I wrapped our second day of driving across the country at 5:30 yesterday. My dad was already at my condo to meet us — having replaced most of the lights to make them stronger, put in new showerheads, moved furniture (I bought the condo furnished; convenient since I’m waiting an undetermined amount of time for all my stuff to show up from the moving company), and picked up pizza and beer. I have a very good dad.
And a very good mom, too, because my beautiful, kind, cuddly cats were predictable monsters to travel with, bless their anxious hearts. It’ll take a while for them to adapt to the new space. Merlin is exploring when I’m around but then will retreat to hang out with Arthur who has camped under my bed (though he came out and walked around and cuddled for a bit last night).
I love my new place — it’s bigger than I remember, with wide windows and the lake in sight. It currently doesn’t have internet, and the internet I am able to get right away will have nebulous speeds, and the cell service is pretty poor too. I seem to be able to get calls but using my cellular data for anything else has been unsuccessful. These are problems with a myriad of solutions that are just going to take some time and patience to figure out. Luckily, I am exactly one mile from my parents (my dad told me he clocked it in his car door to door, exactly 1.0 miles) and they have reliable high-speed internet that my mom is currently on the phone upgrading just in case so I comfortably work from their house (and at the moment, do everything else online too).
It hasn’t really sunk in yet, that I live here, that I’m not leaving after a week, that this is my home and my community now. It’ll take time.
My mom had tears sneak up on her last night when we finally arrived, that I was here, home. She told me she felt like she’d been holding her breath the last ten years, but I had said to her when I first left that I would come back. And I mean what I say.
After a solid night sleep, I went for a run this morning (for the first time in a couple of weeks, to be honest) around the point and down to Troup Park. I stopped there and walked down into the sand, kneeling so I could brush my palm against the water. Welcome home.
The rest of today has been blessedly slow. I unpacked my suitcase this morning and did my best to clean out my car. There’s some pretty heavy-duty cat smells that are going to need a little more work this week. By lunch I was at my parents, eating my mom’s fresh-out-of-the-oven bread with fried eggs for lunch, getting a tour of all the landscaping my dad has been doing around the cottage (we basically have a sculpture garden now, it’s amazing), and then riding bikes back to my place to open up all the windows and grab an afternoon Diet Coke. My dad also dug up an old Game Cube console and games, so we tried setting it up at the condo. We couldn’t figure out how to get the game to show up in color, so I played a Grand Prix of Mario Kart Double Dash in black and white while my parents watched.
There is a lot to be done still. Internet and phone to figure out. Grocery lists to be made. New driver’s license and voter registrations to get done sooner rather than later. Plenty to do at work waiting for me in the week ahead. But today, my dad hands me a Spotted Cow as I type out on their deck, basking in the 72 degrees and sunny late afternoon. Today, I am tired, resting, processing, taking a moment. Today I am home.
With Love,
Natalie