on the street where you live

In the last few days big things have happened and I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't updated the few of you that I asked to read my first high drama post.
We found a place to live! The address is the first thing that appealed to me, 2117 Alameda Ave. If you grew up in Alameda, you know Alameda Ave is a great little block, and I am stoked on the 2117 address, it seems symetrical and neat. I don't know if that makes sense, but the numbers "go together". It's a back house behind a large house with three or four units. It's light green-yellowish, which works for us too. There is a small yard that wraps around the house, mostly dirt but it could BE something. Two bedrooms, one little bathroom. It's smaller than our house now but it's a HOUSE. Not an apartment, or shared walls. And I know there are a million cute places like that, but it was going to be hard to get used to after only living in houses since I was like 9 and moved out of our apartment in NY. And even then, our only neighbor was the strip club downstairs. But anyway.

It's kind of little. And dark. All of the wood is dark, and the windows are smaller and there are not as many. And it makes me feel small, that I am even thinking of the negative things. I should be thrilled. We found a HOUSE. But I am not all the way, because I am clearly a small spoiled child who just wants to stay in MY house. I want my windows, and all my light. I don't even know if there will be a window for my prisms. I am nerd; I have had prisms hanging in my windows since I was in the 6th grade, and dancing rainbow light is just what I expect to have. What if there are no windows for the prisms, what if there are no rainbows? Why am I so lame that I demand rainbows? I know it's not reasonable. I know I should be thankful, and in so many ways I so am.

I am also very, very overwhelmed. I lived my life knowing I would be able to be in my house forever, and so have kept everything I have ever wanted to keep, even the stuff I probably should have gotten rid of, for 25 years. And I am the historian of our little world. I am the one who keeps all the pictures, those videos, that notebook we used to use to keep score for our Uno games, and also drew in and made jokes with. I keep all the treasures that kids make me. I keep t shirts with sentimental value. I am a softy who loves my things, and I keep them all, because I had the place to keep and store and hang on to. And now I don't, so where do I start? It's a rhetorical question, because I have already started, but the work I have done seems like the smallest amount compared with what is still ahead. I look at all the stuff and I am almost paralyzed with the work that needs to be done.

And then there's more news- GB found a job! He is working at Blum, a medical marijuana dispensary in Oakland. He stopped working at Brown Brothers on a Thursday and started working at his new job the next Monday. It's a trip. His dad stopped paying him in March, and he had been collecting unemployment for the past couple of months. To say this has been stressful is an understatement. Finding a job was a giant step for GB and I know it is a huge relief that he has something. I have no words for all that he has gone through. He went from knowing he would have Brown Brothers for his whole life, and he could pass it down to Bash, to having all of that just disappear. He put himself out there and wrote a resume, went on interviews, did the whole thing. He makes me so proud.

And I think down the line, this job will be a good one. It is in a field he knows and loves, and he knows all the players in the Bay Area, especially since his brother is one of the big ones. His connections and introductions are reasons that a lot of people in the 420 game have made money over the last 20 years. And everyone loves GB. Right now, it is another change in his world because he is working 4 10 hour days, and not getting home until around 9 at night. He is learning all the parts of working there in the hopes that he will be a manager of one of the several places that are supposed to open in the next few months. They would be lucky to have him, if that all pans out.

I am a jerk, because for all the good that is going on, I just want my old life, before all this happened. I don't want to move. I don't want to not see my husband at night four days a week. I don't want to lose my backyard, or my jasmine vine, or my light or my rainbows. I just want to go back to before I knew that things were going to go this way. I wish I knew that last year was going to be my last Christmas in my house. I wish I had more dinner parties this last year, when we still had some money and GB was home at night. I thought the #9thStSocialClub was our past, present and future. I thought my future grand babies would sleep in Bash's room, under the moon and Peter, Wendy, John and Michael flying over their heads just like they have for the past 24 years.

And I know I am being dramatic, because we are all here, and it is not a death. People have suffered so much more than what we are going through. But I can't help but mourn the life we had and wish I had it still. My girl Emily from Our Town said it best-
 I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. (she breaks down sobbing, she looks around) I didn't realize. All that was going on in life and we never noticed. Take me back.