This has been a hell of a few weeks.
I went back to move my niece into college, sift through everything we had stored from our own home, sell the crap we didn’t want, and ship the rest down.
Watching my niece walk into her dorm room left me with a lump in my throat and I could barely breathe when i wished to the universe that she live fierce in spite of fear. I secretly hoped that she developed a milder version of the love of fear that I have.
Luckily my grandmother died while I was home.
Wait, that didn’t come out right.
I was lucky to be able to celebrate my Grandmother’s life with the rest of my family while I was home. That’s one con of living down here, every time someone passes that you need to be at the service for, it is a major cost and a long travel time. Of course, it gets you out of some of the funerals you’d otherwise go to if you were local.
Leave it to my Grandma Priscilla to make it as convenient as possible for me, even in death. She was a pretty cool cat, she ordered her drink “Give me a scotch and water, easy on the water”, I may have gotten a little something from her, she knew what she liked, and wasn’t afraid to have fun.
She had also been planning her death from before the time I was born, and there is something to that, living like you’re gonna die, well, you’re more or less of an asshole, depending on how much or little you care for someone, and you have a real grip on the fact that you are only here for a small amount of time, and then you are a memory, be a fucking hilarious one, and she was. I hope to be too.
So I never sold any of the shit that I didn’t want, I just gave it all away, fuck it, who wants to have a garage sale and witness strangers judging your shit that you don’t want? “No, I don’t want it, but you should, what is wrong with you?”
I take that kind of rejection hard.
There is something about living on an island that really makes you not give a fuck about stuff, but I will tell you this, I CANNOT WAIT to cook a meal with my kitchen stuff. Kmart is awesome and all, but she doesn’t have shit on Sur La Table and pampered chef.
I also can’t wait to have my Christmas ornaments, every one with a different story, like the time I broke my rib and had to be “bobcatted” off the sledding hill and ambulanced away, well, only appropriate for my sister to get me a sledding ornament. Nothing’s funnier than an ER visit, right?
I do miss that about having my family all together, ripping and laughing at all of our failures. I love failure. Failure is so much funnier than success.
So, our shit is in the middle of the ocean somewhere, and I am here, waiting for my rubber spatulas and my dutch oven. I may love the feeling of fear, and may not fear my death, but I’ll be god damned if someone is going to reject the crap I don’t want, and just you wait til my island Christmas tree goes up, displaying all my failures, just watch it sparkle.
