Hello. I live in Jersey.
May 4, 2006We moved on Sunday, after an all-night frenzy of last-minute packing. Even though we had been packing for six weeks—and before the official packing had begun, had purged our belongings for our Open House, in order that we might fool would-be buyers into thinking that our home was clean and spacious and not inhabited by unhinged packrats—we were still up all night packing. There seems to be no way around this. Nature demands that the night before you uproot yourselves and leave your loved ones, you must also be deprived of sleep.
For the first day or two here I was positively blissful, but at some point on Tuesday I began my slow decline. It went a little like this:
Day 1: It’s so pretty here. And peaceful! This is going to be great!
Day 2: The quiet! I love it. I LOVE IT. I can’t believe I love living here! In the suburbs!
Day 3: Wow, the quiet, it sure doesn’t stop, does it? Isn’t there any noise?
Day 4: OH GOD, THE SILENCE. THE AWFUL SILENCE. MAKE IT STOP.
Day 5: Goddamn silence makes me want to punch someone. And what’s this “I have to drive everywhere” shit?
Speaking of driving, I’ve only driven the car twice and already I’ve made at least two wildly boneheaded driving maneuvers. I err on the side of caution, as I am a 90-year-old trapped in a 37-year-old’s body. In one instance, my bony hands clutched the wheel at 10 and 2 as I came to a dead stop at an intersection because I couldn’t find the damn light (why do they hide it on the side like that?) and then wondered why everyone around me was leaning on their horns. (Even the people without cars! Kids these days! Walking around with horns!) But I’ll get used to this, right? Someone? At some point, I hope to stop sweating so hard my hands are sliding off the steering wheel.
It doesn’t help that my son has developed a car aversion, due no doubt to his delightful new tendency to vomit after relatively short car rides. (Dear relatives who want us to come visit you: will you wait until my son’s eighteen? If he’s not over this by then I’m pretty sure he could at least hold the bag over his mouth.) Today we went for a five-minute ride so that I could go to a dermatologist (because my face reacts to stress by EXPLODING. And my hair falls out! I’m breathtaking), and I thought Scott and Henry might like to check out the neighborhood library and meet me afterward, and boy what a bad idea that was! Which I realized when we told Henry we were getting into the car! “NOOOOO!” he shrieked. “GAAAAAH! I’m going to THROW UP!” he informed us. He didn’t, thankfully, and when we got there he informed us that the ride “wasn’t so bad after all,” a fact that leapt gazelle-like from his mind when it was time to get back into the car to go home. He went all boneless and wept facedown on the sidewalk while Scott and I discussed if it was okay to leave him there for the afternoon.
But enough about him; let’s get back to me. On the positive side, I have discovered my Inner Extrovert. I had thought I was on the shy side, but now that there’s no one around, I’m jonesing for the sweet stink of humanity. It’s unspeakably weird to have, instead of hundreds of people on your block, maybe eight. (It’s a small block.) While I used to sit in my apartment gritting my teeth while gaggles of morons stood directly outside my window, leaning against the security grate and discussing That Slut Chrissy Who Totally Fooled Around with Rick (for example), I now find myself standing on my porch, shrieking salutations at the 3 or 4 people foolish enough to pass by. (If you happen to be in Jersey and you spot a hairless acne-ridden hysteric perched on her weed-choked lawn, flailing her limbs, do not be afraid. That’s how I say hello!) The few brave souls I've spoken to have been lovely, even when my son tried to kiss them full on the lips. (Apparently he feels as I do, with the whole love of humanity thing.)
Also! Weeds! We have this lawn, and we have absolutely not one single clue what to do with it. We also don’t know how to take care of, oh, anything else. Our ignorance in all home ownership matters is absolutely staggering. So far our strategy has been to stare at the weeds and say, “We really should, I don’t know, rip those out?” and then go back inside and stare at the boxes and say, “Oh, god, so much to unpack.” And then we join Henry in his Quest For Galactic Dominance, in the relatively clean corner of the dining room.
So yeah, so far this is all working out just fine.
Reader Comments (103)
Then again, you might not want to kill those two birds as they may be the only things chasing the troublesome silence away.
the lawn, ach. whatever. you have a house! your very own! in the silence! which yes, at first, creepy but then? you will adore it! and many more exclamation marks! i think i had too much chocolate!
also i am watching ER and it is a very stressful episode that has made me very hyper!
Granted, this has nothing to do with anything, but reading your post reminded me of that and made me laugh.
It'll be okay. I'm excited for you.
I find the best way to deal with weeds is the lawnmower. I have become very adept at getting the lawnmower up into the little raised gardens that surround my house. Admittedly I no longer have any nice flowers, and the rosebushes are now little stumps, but at least when my mom comes to visit she can't complain about the weeds!
Wait until next weekend when someone wakes at 8am and decides to mow the lawn. Then he wakes up some other guy who thinks, "Oh yeah, I should mow the lawn today." And just when the first guy is done, the second guy has his coffee and starts up his mower. Which wakes up two more neighbors who think, "I guess I should mow today, too." Etc. until 8pm that night.
And then there's leafblower season and snowblower season...it will be like you never left the subway. ;-)
The lawn? Weeds are in. Did you know that most lawn weeds are edible? Just think of it as your Armageddon stockpile.
Mary, mom to many, also battling the weeds in my own little corner of suburbia...actually my corner of the world is called the boondocks.
It'll get better... is there a park nearby where you could, maybe, meet other moms?
We only came out of there (each of us speaking in 2nd-person plural, our eyeballs possessed of a phosphorous glow) when they hooked up the cable.
I'm glad you survived your move intact with only a few problems (which I'm sure don't detract from your beauty. I hope you get used to the quiet soon. Let us know if you start experiencing bourgeois emptiness of stifling conformity and want to say things like "You're boring me. I already have a husband." And drink. That, or write upbeat humor books about married life. Then we'll start to worry.
(And that Rick, he's on with Chrissy's best friend now I hear.)
I have not actually gone back under the house yet, but I might soon.
Also, I have not yet unpacked all my boxes, and it has been 11 months. But I did recently paint one wall of my kitchen.
It might not be a bad thing that he doesn't like car. Perhaps it will carry over until he's about 16 and then you won't have to worry about him driving.
And lawns? Do what the Jerseyites do. Hire a groundskeeper :)
As for the driving anxiety, I had that too when I moved. I find that now that there are Google Maps, it helps tremendously to plan each drive first, and to look at the hybrid map to imagine what the landmarks might look like when I get to turns and such. I found it helped me get the rhythms of the streets, so that I could drive a little more confidently. You can even, on close-ups, see if there's a left-turn lane at major intersections. Sounds crazy, but it can be a big relief to know what to expect.