letters from the upside down
Apr. 3rd, 2019 03:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_siobhanMy sister told me something that a friend said to her when Fiona died. "When a loved one dies it turns your world upside down. You never recover from that. But eventually you get used to walking on the ceiling."
Hokey, I know. But it sure fits reality a lot better than any of that "time heals" bullshit.
So life goes on.
I would rather be the sort of faded dowager from 18th-century novels who keep their loved ones' dust-covered belongings hanging in the closet until the end of time, but mortgages in Toronto being what they are we are going to have to rent out the basement at some point soon. The last couple of weekends (and every upcoming weekend for at least the rest of the month) have therefore been dedicated to sorting, packing, unpacking, cleaning and having conversations that start off with, "What do you think we should do about..."
Also alcohol (me), cigarettes (Axel), and tears (both of us).
Kind people have made arrangements for contributions of food, boxes, transportation and other useful things. So that has been very helpful.
And because there is no week so shitty that something trivial can't go wrong just to add a generous dollop of bullshit to the pile, our fridge decided to die on us in the middle of the week. A repairman decreed it not worth trying to fix, so we bought a new one. Which just fit through the front door, but most decidedly did not fit between the handrails on our front steps. Axel dug out a saw, two of our very generous neighbours helped us muscle it up the stairs (fucker is seriously THREE TIMES the weight of the old one) and now we have a brand new working fridge (with a couple of small dings in it from the handrails) and a repair job on our front porch waiting for the weather to warm up a few more degrees. I've been patching the front steps for the past couple of years just trying to hold off the day we finally have no choice but to dump a stack of money into tearing the whole thing off and rebuilding it, so that in itself isn't a big deal. And it will be nice if our electrical bill goes down now that the last of our old electrical appliances has been replaced with an energy rated one.
And life goes on.
Hokey, I know. But it sure fits reality a lot better than any of that "time heals" bullshit.
So life goes on.
I would rather be the sort of faded dowager from 18th-century novels who keep their loved ones' dust-covered belongings hanging in the closet until the end of time, but mortgages in Toronto being what they are we are going to have to rent out the basement at some point soon. The last couple of weekends (and every upcoming weekend for at least the rest of the month) have therefore been dedicated to sorting, packing, unpacking, cleaning and having conversations that start off with, "What do you think we should do about..."
Also alcohol (me), cigarettes (Axel), and tears (both of us).
Kind people have made arrangements for contributions of food, boxes, transportation and other useful things. So that has been very helpful.
And because there is no week so shitty that something trivial can't go wrong just to add a generous dollop of bullshit to the pile, our fridge decided to die on us in the middle of the week. A repairman decreed it not worth trying to fix, so we bought a new one. Which just fit through the front door, but most decidedly did not fit between the handrails on our front steps. Axel dug out a saw, two of our very generous neighbours helped us muscle it up the stairs (fucker is seriously THREE TIMES the weight of the old one) and now we have a brand new working fridge (with a couple of small dings in it from the handrails) and a repair job on our front porch waiting for the weather to warm up a few more degrees. I've been patching the front steps for the past couple of years just trying to hold off the day we finally have no choice but to dump a stack of money into tearing the whole thing off and rebuilding it, so that in itself isn't a big deal. And it will be nice if our electrical bill goes down now that the last of our old electrical appliances has been replaced with an energy rated one.
And life goes on.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-03 10:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-04 12:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-04 01:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-04 01:56 am (UTC)Big hugs to you and Axel both. I'm truly hoping that the universe can give you some space to adjust to the new upside down gravity you're in. <3
(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-04 02:24 pm (UTC)Brutal. I have no idea what a basemen in Toronto is like, and I'm not entirely sure how sure hiw long you guys have been in the Gin Palace, but, ugh.
And, as someone with a 1981 fridge... well.
I've got nothing. But I am here if you guys need anything. Gold, coal, iron ore, sarcasm..,
(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-04 02:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-05 03:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-05 12:04 pm (UTC)Clearing out the stuff is hard. We were dowagers for about six years WRT dad. I mean, N was living there, and she has an unstoppable Saturday cleaning ritual, but the rest of the place was like cobwebby 1980s, and then the lawn died. :/ That is to say sorry this sucks. I also like the upside down metaphor. True.