The Year That Shall Not Be Named by Y. M. Roger True Story Contest contest entry |
Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language.
It was the year that would mark a half-century for me. As a woman, I was both excited because I thought (still do!) that I looked pretty damn good for fifty years young and nervous because I’d been told all the recurring horror stories as to how it was ‘all downhill from here’. Suffice to say, I was going with the positive thinking.Oh, and I wouldn’t say I’m a control freak; although, I must admit to being someone that likes to feel somewhat in control of their situation. I think we all do to some extent, don’t you? Well, it is to that ‘extent’ that this so very true tale will speak. It was the New Year – another cold January – and my husband and I decided to put our house on the market. Our two older boys were off at college – one getting ready to start law school and one in undergraduate – and our youngest only had a couple of years remaining in high school. The big thing that had gotten us thinking, of course, was that mortgage interest rates were in the basement….something that we knew wouldn’t last forever. We had always planned on eventually moving to the country. So, now was as good a time as any to get away from the traffic of our burgeoning hometown whose growth over the twenty-two years of our marriage had pretty much reached our tolerability limit for feeling “hemmed in”. Thoroughly cleaning a house in which we had spent eighteen years was quite a challenge, but we did it. The hardest part of this marketing/selling routine had to be the searching for a new house that we both agreed on. When March rolled around and Spring was upon us, I was just about ready to pull my hair out and, perhaps, some of my husband’s as well. It was about then that we happened upon our “dream home”. It was perfect in so very many ways that the shortfalls became almost invisible to us. We immediately put an offer on it – contingent upon the sale of ours – and our minds turned to the process of planning, packing, and moving. For the first time in almost two decades, I was going to have to really do this: move EVERYTHING! Within a week, we got an offer on our house, accepted it, and set a date of two days before my fiftieth birthday for both closings – selling in the morning and buying in the afternoon. And that’s when – to my best determination – we pissed off The Fates or The Norns or, hell, for all I know, it could have been the goddess Fortuna herself! Whatever the who and whatever the why, we found ourselves in at least one of those deity’s crosshairs. It started with a call from the specialist we had added to the house inspection due to the unique material of the exterior of the house we were going to buy. He found mold. So much mold. And the cost to right the problem put the deal far outside of our realm of affordability. But, hey! At least our house sold, right? Riiiiight. So, instead of readying a four bedroom house with a crowded attic and storage shed in the back yard to move into a large, open floor plan with large workshop in the country, we had to get ready to move into a small, three bedroom apartment (plus two large and one medium rented storage rooms at another location a few miles away). Not even dwelling on the moving insanity for the sake of brevity, the closing on our house went off without a hitch, and the three of us spent our first night in a ridiculously crowded apartment. In fact, I’m pretty sure there was more space filled with boxes and piles/stacks of furniture than there was actual “empty” space in which to move around. The next day, I managed to get much of the kitchen that we didn’t put into storage unpacked, actually cooked dinner, and vowed that our bedroom would be my next conquest. Birthday or no, I would have a closet and a bathroom tomorrow! I had to just close the door to the third bedroom where the two older boys would have to stay for the summer – the entire room was floor-to-ceiling boxes and beds and clothing and such. It was best to not even look at that until I had to do so in couple of weeks. That night, I was so exhausted from trying to unpack as much as humanly possible in a day that I literally fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Now, I am an extremely light sleeper, so, waking up with a start to a room still veiled in darkness at just after one in the morning was nothing new. What was new, however, were the thin wisps of smoke skirting through the moonlight shining through the bedroom window. And the smell…..oh, I will NEVER forget that smell! Adrenaline hit me like a freight train, and, in turn, I hit my husband: the apartment building was on fire! And for the record, the smoke alarms in our unit were NOT going off! I leapt out of bed and made a bee-line for my son’s room. The next stop was to find Obiwan, our family cat of over ten years – a task that should have awarded a gold-medal for completion. Did you know that cats, when they are scared, choose to hide behind the most boxes they can find in a part of a room that is the most difficult to access? Well, now you do because, seriously, I pulled a hip trying to get to that feline Houdini! The four of us got out the apartment door about the time smoke had started pouring between the ceiling and the wall that separated us from the other unit, and the sound of three fire trucks pulling into the complex parking lot greeted us as we rounded the corner. No sirens, mind you . You see, they don’t want to wake anyone up unnecessarily. Okay, now that should at least make you smile…..even though it is certainly the truth! The mad rush of firemen and the kaleidoscope of emergency lights flooding the area had Obiwan completely losing his mind. Yeah, the Force was not so strong with him that night. As such, we located our vehicle and, literally, locked him in there for safe-keeping. We then moved away from the building as instructed and watched as the flames broke through the roof above our unit. And there, at half past one in the morning, burned the biggest and most awful birthday candle one could conjure, whether on this side of hell or the other. To anyone with any intelligence whatsoever, it was clear that – no matter how hard those firemen worked – the place was most likely a total loss. Are you feeling that maybe you might not be in total control of the situation? Perhaps. But the larger question is this: are you feeling down yet? Don’t be! Because, remember, when that happens, The Fates win. I snapped a picture of the now-engulfed structure with my cell phone and texted it to work – I was fine, but I would not be in to work today and, perhaps, not tomorrow. I then muted my phone because I was definitely not in the mood for conversation, text or otherwise. A dear friend of ours came and picked us up, and we moved into two bedrooms of her “empty nest” house for the next five days. Five days that we were denied access to the apartment for liability reasons. Five days of which three were some of the rainiest our town had seen in almost a decade. Five days in which anything – and I do mean anything – that could have survived the fire was now completely ruined by the water and natural processes that followed its collection. And when we were allowed access on that fifth day? Oh. My. Goodness. There simply are no words that allow me to describe for you the malodorous and, yes, miasmatic odors that emanated from what once defined some of our most precious belongings. My husband and I spent the entirety of two days going through what could be gone through – each of us sporting very stylish hospital masks – and deciding what had even the possibility of being salvaged. Homemade furniture my husband had created for each of the boys. Nearly everything the older boys had left at home in their rooms when they went off to school, and my younger son's entire room. That whole stupid kitchen I had spent an entire day unpacking. Our warm-weather clothes (including all of my summer shoes!). Our table and chairs and bookshelves and their contents. Every bit of the new curriculums I had spent the first part of the school year developing. Our entire collection of family photos and albums and tapes we had stored in the apartment....you know, so the soaring temperatures in the storage units would not ruin them. All of it. Gone. Okay, at this point, I would allow you, perhaps, a bit of the feeling that things were slipping out of your control. But only a bit, mind you. And don’t get the blues either. Because, you see? That – that relinquishment of your smile – would make The Norns happy, and we’re not giving them that. Trying to take in the positives, I told myself that many of the boys’ childhood memories sans photos had been stored in the attic in our house. As such, they were, thankfully, safe and dry in one of the storage units. All of my husband’s woodworking equipment, his huge assortment of tools and power tools, and his auto mechanics’ accessories were all still safe in the storage unit with its video surveillance and coded entry requirements. Oh, and my eclectic collection of kitchen gadgets and baking pans and various and sundry kitchen items that had no place in a temporary apartment along with my winter clothing and shoes I wouldn’t need for at least six months – these, too, were all happily together in boxes and bins in the waterless, free-from-fire storage company. The next few weeks were consumed with insurance claims and frustrations. And, then, of course, there was our oldest son’s undergraduate graduation, the moving of two boys plus stuff home from college to our new three bedroom apartment, and more said frustrations. I got final grades out for the year, dealt with more insurance frustrations and financial documentation issues, and I reached desperately for that elusive sense of control. We told ourselves that we found it by continuing to make time to meet our realtor at different properties as they became available. That one with too many stairs; this one with no front or back porch; and these two far too close to either a dump or a run-down trailer park. And so on. As I was attempting to prepare yet another meal for five in a kitchen designed for one or maybe two on the outside, my husband phoned. He was supposed to be stopping by the storage unit company on his way home from work, and I figured he was letting me know he would be late because of traffic. Oh, if only that had been the case. It seemed that a row of storage units, one that included our largest storage room, had been broken into and plundered. Our unit was completely cleared out except for my husband’s table saw which had been too heavy for the thieves to lift into one of their trucks. Yes, it was all on video footage, and yes, the authorities had opened an investigation, and, yes, they even had the license plate of one of the stolen trucks used in the robbery. However, the detectives did not hold out much hope as most such items moved quickly in exchange for cash with active websites such as CRAIGS LIST and LET GO and the like. Hooray for modern technology…..Not. The unit had contained most of the contents of my husband’s garage workshop. Those items I listed earlier? Gone. Also housed there had been our entire family library of books from the huge wall of bookshelves that had adorned the mantle wall in our former house. Every one of my husband’s fishing poles and both tackle boxes – much of which was heirloom items from his grandfather had been there. The boxes in there had included hundreds of family DVDs – both commercially produced and personally taken from the boys’ classes, sports activities, and the like – as well as every bit of my craft and sewing supplies, doo-dads, and loads of crazy mom-saved mementos from over the years. And every bit of it except, of course, for that insane table saw, would never be seen again. At least not by us. Okay, now you can actually visualize one of your hands slipping off the control rope, don’t you think? I’ll give you that much at this point. Possibly. But please don’t get gloomy on me. If you do, you hand Fortuna a reason to smile, something with which I still refused to gift her. And I’m just going to cut to the chase here, not going to feed on your inability to look away from the train wreck. Just gonna come right out and tell you that, before another month had passed, our youngest son’s car was stolen from the parking lot out in front of the apartment. It wasn’t the middle of the night or even before dawn when the theft occurred, it was about time to leave for school. And, even though it was the time of the morning when most folks are out and leaving for work, when the police got there to file a report, it seemed that "nobody saw nothin." Two weeks after that? Well, that marked the date that our practically brand new utility trailer we had stored at our church was stolen. And, yes, I did just say that it was stolen from where it was locked and stored at a church. Sigh. Finally, we put an offer on another house. Within the week, that, too, fell through for a number of reasons. I simply had to face facts: control over my own circumstances had been completely obliterated. Yep! Both hands were officially off the rope, and I was just rollin’ in the chaos of what came next. And, in the few short months that followed leading into the holidays, I still refused to give any of those bitches of destiny the satisfaction of my getting depressed! In November, we had a big Thanksgiving celebration complete with a scrambling of bodies opening windows and holding of ears when the smoke from the poor, over-worked, little apartment oven set-off both the self-purchased and the apartment-based smoke alarms. Twice. And Christmas? Hey, we celebrated in modern style with one of those maybe-not-so-insane pre-lit trees (the kind at which I used to scoff, mind you!) that come with decorations and everything. It was the perfect solution since nearly every bit of our family decorations were buried so deep in the one large remaining storage room that I refused to even try to find them. You simply tell yourself you’re actually in a Dr. Seuss book: open the box, branches up like an umbrella, plug in the cord, and voila! A Christmas tree! Take some time to bend the branches and cones and the small decorations this way and that, and throw a soft blanket underneath – greatest invention since chocolate (or at least damn close to it)! It was such a small thing: a stupid, manufactured Christmas tree. But do you know what that tree did? It not only kept all of us smiling and cracking jokes about the awful thing (no, really, it was pretty awful – and skinny – especially compared to the large one our family usually decorates!), but it also handed back to me a proverbial piece of that rope – I could claim just the smallest modicum of control over my circumstances. And, before we could all bask in the glorious lack of calamitous events, it was the New Year. Again. But this was the year that would mark the first year in a new life filled with lots and lots and lots of new stuff – not all at once and, of course, by necessity, not by choice. But it was a start. At the half-century mark, I had been baptized by fire and by water and had lost just about whatever household and personal item you care to name – probably even some that you would prefer not to name depending upon your gender…..And you know what? I could still smile, could still walk upright, and could even laugh through the haze of what the Fates and the Norns and Fortuna had to offer. On top of all that, I looked damn good for a woman over fifty (still do, thank you!), and I made a vow that there would be no ‘downhill from here’ for me. Nope, it would be the first year I was gonna be happy to not be in complete control – I, my friend, would just be rollin’. Not downhill. Not uphill. Just holding onto that rope only in the slightest. And smiling. Always smiling. Because that way? I win every time.
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Y. M. Roger
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