At the Ends of Infinity

It has been eighteen months, to the day, since my editor and I (as well as our roommate at the time) were washed out of our home. Eighteen of the simultaneously best and worst months of my entire life. I was doing nothing but living day to day, week to week, waiting for the next significant date to pass by. Deadlines came and went, as did holidays and vacations, weeks of work, and anything else that I could think of. I have seen so many people come and go, I have experienced great joy and great sorrow, both loss and gain. I have done my best to stick it through and I have conquered the majority of the obsticals thrown in my way. Everything was a combination of " _ will be able to _ as soon as _ happens in the next _ days/weeks." As my editor put it, everything we needed to happen was perpetually two weeks in the future.

But it's all over now. 

This past weekend, I flew out to visit my parents for my father's retirement. He had retuned from overseas back in November and this was the mark of his end of service in the military. It was an incredibly emotional day and an amazing ceremony. Afterwords we went out to lunch in the Bay Area and as we are parking I received a phone call from the gentleman in charge of the construction company. In short, he said "everything is finished. Come get your keys!" Which was  exactly what expecting to hear after seeing the company adding final touches over the previous weeks. I couldn't be more excited. However this meant that the upcoming week was probably going to kill me (and it pretty much is) because I have to empty the condo and garage and arrange everything. 

Fast forward to now, as it marks the first night (morning, technically since I work overnight and sleep in the morning) that I was able to sleep in my home again. My editor, two former roommates, another friend, and myself have all been working diligently since Monday to get everything moved in and put together. We have made excellent progress but we still have a long way to go. When we finished dragging all the furniture in to the bedroom it meant that we could bring all the cats over, and they were very unsure of this prospect at first but now that they have been there for a whole day they act like they've been there the whole time. I've been slowly running out of energy today but I did at least make my goal of getting the bathroom 90% done, at least to the point where I could shower, and I did (and it was the best thing ever). Every day that I have been working on the condo, I have had to work the night of, and that will continue until it is finished, although I do get ONE day off this week, it really won't feel like it, since it is my goal to be 99.9% moved in by mine and my editor's four year annaversary next Thursday. (This has been a busy month, believe me). I can expect my newly retired father who has a lot more free time now a days to be driving in this weekend with a trailer full of more stuff (to store, mostly), including some bookshelves from my mother which I will combine with my remaining shelves to contain all of my manga in my fabulous new office. (Wow, that was a run-on sentence if I ever wrote one). 

I am more than ready to complete this chapter of my life, ending this perpetual limbo I have been stuck in, and crack open a new chapter, one that, I hope, will be filled with less complaining and more "look what I made today!" I'm ready to get creative again, to be social again, to be inviting again.

I AM READY TO LIVE AGAIN.