Moving in Together

Dave was home for 10 days.  We, of course, being the two we are, crammed a lot into the time.  A trip to IKEA for kitchen ideas, Home Depot for shelving, the Jersey shore before it got too cold for Joel to swim, Swamp Road, church, dinner on the deck with new friends, relaxing converstation on the deck with other new friends.  This will be a good place for us.

He made a place for himself.  It required building shelves and renting a storage unit, but he fits.  While he was gone, I commented that I have too many clothes.  He, very considerately, responded, “You always look very nice.”  When he was here, fitting into the limited closet space we have in a two-bedroom condo, he, more in character, said, “You have too many clothes.”  Perspective is everything.

Dave has been in Mexico now for two weeks.  He will return tomorrow for a long stay….until the first of the year when he has trips to guide to Copper Canyon.  Yesterday, I was on the phone to Mexico, contacting a new friend and possible guide for Dave’s business.  That was really fun!  I can’t wait to go south for a trip.

So, beginning Wednesday, we have to figure out how to live together again.  This time it is more than doing a bunch of tasks in a limited amount of time.  Now, we are ready to settle in and find our way. 

We are ready to be together again.  There is lots of building to do–a kitchen and two bathrooms, new relationships, new memories, our businesses.  And, building further on the 35+ years we have spent together.

Yikes! Where will we put him???

Dave is just about ready to leave his Colorado cowboy experience.  After Labor Day, he is free to head east, old man!  He is ready to go forward with his Mexico adventure trip plans and ready to come home to Bucks County.  He is really enjoying the brilliant early fall sunrises and sunsets in the mountains, though.  I hope he will be able to be glad for the experience without too much melancholy at leaving.

A few mornings ago, I was getting dressed and looking around the closet in our bedroom, and it dawned on me that there is not much room to squeeze another person into our condo.  It actually did go through my head, “Where will we put him?” 

Joel and I are doing great in our small but adequate condo.  We have an unspoken schedule that works for us.  We see one another every evening…I get home around 5:30 – 6:30 and we either grill out or comment on what the other is thinking of eating.  We always check the Cubs score online.  Sometimes, we walk up town to eat or to get water ice.  I tolerate Joel’s television watching that involves a lot of Power Rangers and Avatar.  He tolerates my internet and freecell focus and doesn’t mind me disappearing out on our balcony to read.  On the weekends, we go somewhere.  Yesterday, it was the shore.  We have been trying restaurants around Doylestown once a week or so.  We still have the Philly zoo and a train ride we are talking about. 

I need to begin to consider just how we are going to assimilate Dave into this low-key and simple existence we have settled into.  Of course, Dave will only be here a week or so before he heads out to Mexico wtih Bob Strong and a group of his, so he will probably feel like he is just visiting us! 

It’ll be good to have Dave home here in Pennsylvania.  There are PA license plates on my car and I have a PA car title and inspection completed.  This is home, now.  And, after 35 years, that means I will need to not just find a place to put him, but to welcome him here and absorb him into life as I have come to know it and adjust to life here with him.  Things will change and that is good. 

Wow.  There is a lot that I have experienced apart from Dave.  People I know who he doesn’t.  Ways to get places that he will have to figure out.  Habits I have settled into and preferences I have formed.  A connection and at-home-ness that I feel in Doylestown and all of Bucks County.  It hasn’t even been four months, but I have made the adjustment.  If we could remember the vows we made to one another back there in Austin, Texas in August of 1973, I imagine something we promised would cover meshing into a new life here.  Just like it covered allowing the separate pull to Colorado. 

We’ll find a place to put him!