Blessings in Disguise

I've been trying to save money for college, but now I see it trickling away into an interesting "series of unfortunate events" at my other house.
It began last week when Lisa called me to inform me the upstairs shower was dripping into the downstairs shower. A plumber came over and told me there was a rusting hole in the drain and the upstairs bathtub needed to be replaced. He said he would fix it on Wednesday.
I scheduled Wednesday off as a vacation day since this was not "sick-day-worthy." Wednesday morning he called in sick. I went into work. And the basement in the other house flooded.
I put the girls up in a hotel room while we tried to figure things out.
Plumber #2 came over the next day to see what was going on. "Yes, the tub needs fixing" he said. $2,000 dollars later, I discovered the tub had been dripping for so long there was black mold on the ceiling of the shower below. The water heater had caused the flood in the garage.
I called Gus, my friendly handyman for help. He was busy so he sent over his brother-in-law, Dave. Nice guy who's saving my hide.
The blessings so far? I'm lucky this happened while I was still in town. I'm lucky Lisa discovered this a few days before moving out of the house. I'm glad Sara was using the upstairs shower at the same time so we could see the leak. I'm glad the water heater exploded, causing me to call a new plumber who I trusted. The new guy was Czech -- and was kicked out of the country 30 years before for being an anarchist in the then-communist regime. I'm lucky Lisa hadn't moved her furniture into the garage yet as she had planned -- same with my friend Ansley.
Friday night -- the goodbye party for Lisa. I use Tracey & Eugene's wet-vac downstairs to suck up the water that had soaked onto the carpet. Nichole comes downstairs and suggests I take up the carpet. She calls one of her friends who works at Chem-dry (where she worked for about 7 years). He instructs us on how to tear up the carpet without ruining it... and how to pull out the sopping rugs below. With pliers, scissors, and a butter knife, we tugged in our nice clothes as our friends (including a few "boys") remained upstairs. She helped me save the carpet.
Her friends came over the next day to give me an estimate -- and included a "Nichole discount" for me. Dave came over too to move the water heater so it would release outside the house instead of in the garage. But the elements were still broken.
I went over last night to check it out. I couldn't figure it out, but what I did notice on that rainy evening... was the gutter in the front which appeared to almost fall off the house.
Which brings us to tonight. The carpets were fixed. Dave brought a friend over to fix the water heater (fingers crossed that it actually works!). The rain began pouring so hard... it started coming into the garage. Dave and the carpet guys dropped what they were doing to stop the water. The carpet guys hooked up their super-soaking vaccum to catch all the water. Anything that looked wet, they picked up and cleaned off.
So far I've spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars to see these blessings. Although I love seeing how they continue to turn out, I hope the next few are a little less expensive... It will be interesting to see what else happens.

Healing

I have no idea why, but I contacted an old boyfriend the other day. He's the "one true love who smashed my heart into nothingness" guy. Oh yes, now you recall of whom I speak...
It was very interesting. He kept popping into my head for some reason over the past couple weeks, so I decided to write him an email.
It comes at a good time for me. For the past two or three years, I've been working on why I've been attracted to certain men. I was welcoming in unnecessary energy from these people; I always picked men I knew I would never marry or would never allow myself to truly fall in love with. Now, after allowing myself a long sabbatical, I suppose I am now taking some sort of action. Contacting him was a big step for me. He moved on with his life long ago. I moved on from him, but not from the destruction from our relationship.
If it weren't he, it would have been someone else. We all seem to have them at one point: the one who really makes us realize what love truly is. Sometimes we stick with those people, and others we harness that love and tend to resent it when it ends.
I'm grateful for my journey. I wonder if my contacting him serves as a beginning, an ending, or just another chapter in my healing process. I just know it's different somehow than how things have been in the past. I don't feel pain, or envy, or anger, or fear. I just feel refreshed and ready to move on to my next step. I guess that's what healing our wounds - no matter how long it takes - is really about.

Vacations

A couple weeks ago I took some time off to head down to LA for the first annual National Critics Conference. It helped me gather some ideas about my future, meet some fantastic contacts, and to come up with an idea for my thesis. It was incredible.
Last weekend, I went out to DC to stay with Cathy and to go to Edmond's wedding. It was absolutely surreal. I saw nearly 20 of my old buddies from growing up. Everyone looks the same as they did in high school -- and no one ever seems to change a bit. It was fabulous. What a great pre-cursor to this summer's high school reunion.
I'm now taking a few days off to get settled into the idea of quitting my job. I'm quite comfortable with the idea and hate the thought of going back to the grind in a few days. I'm trying to de-stress. I've been running around so much lately that my hair's been falling out in clumps and I've managed to get a few canker sores in my mouth. I'm disgusting.