Blather

This is the first room done. Done as in "no more needs doing." The walls are fixed and primed, the ceiling is uniformly white. I put some darker yellow, slightly orange trim along the baseboards and on the door edges, with white semi-gloss on the window casings and the single panels on the doors. I put new mortise locksets in the doors, new porcelain knobs on the built-in dresser, and even got drawer liner in the built-in dresser. The bed is my son's, stashed in storage because he broke the side rail and one of the slats. I repaired the slat, built another slat, and put a steel screw into the broken part of the side rail before re-assembling the whole thing. Bed is nice. Everything's great- lights, paint, floors, blinds, bed.

The living room is almost done. I patched the 3" hole my son made to pull wires. Getting pretty good at patching round holes in plaster walls. I'll touch-up the yellow walls, then put a coat of white semi-gloss on the baseboards. I patched holes in the bathroom, also so we could re-wire the room, and I'll try to put some light green semi-gloss on the walls. The light fixture that was there looks much better with a coat of blue-green metalic paint. (The clods that had the house before us had hit the fixture a few times with a paint roller.)

Got some yardwork to do, but I'm trying to focus on the inside of the house for now. One down, ten to go.

This post should be about the way I feel about the five of us and the title, "You can't go home again."

It's been two weeks since my ex-wife, daughter and small son moved into part of my Stockton house. They'd been evicted for non-payment; my big son and I helped them move all their stuff into two storage lockers and some at my house. They showed up and began occupying one large room and one small room. In the last two weeks, things have been very different for me. The five of us have spent time together, but being together isn't like before the divorce.

For the last five years, the divorce has caused me a lot of heartburn. I got stuck with huge alimony and my ex got huge chunks of money. She spent it all, even losing her inherited house to foreclosure. The list of grievances goes on, but this isn't about the grievances, it's about the last two weeks and how I got to this confused condition.

I was working in the Stockton house when they drove up. My ex looked amazingly different. I remember seeing a strong woman, albeit hostile. That woman was replaced by a weak, haggard one. She shuffled into the room wearing pull-on slippers, the kind my mom wore while she was sick from cancer. Her hair was grey for six inches at the roots, but auburn for a similar length at the tips. Her shoulders were very thin, but she was pear-shaped, with a lot of mass around her stomach and hips. She was very weak.

My daughter continued to care for her, making sure she had a bed and something to eat and drink. In many ways, my daughter is in charge. She decides what to do, when to begin and how to get accomplish what needs doing.

My small son is around, but remains very passive about many things. When not asked to do anything, he's glued to his computer, playing games. He can be helpful, but doesn't volunteer much, nor does he see a need and take care of it. He has helped a lot with yardwork; he's installed outlets and breakers, pulled wires for them and even painted a bit. He's capable, but not very ambitious.

My big son and I drive to Stockton in the morning, work, then come back in the evening. To get more done, I've spent several nights there, sleeping in Last Resort. One evening, I talked with my daughter about how long they'd be living with me. My daughter wants to find a job, get an apartment and move into her own place. This is a plan, but she has no way to accomplish her goal. Moving into an apartment will require about $3000 and she said they don't have that much money. They have no income except my ex's half of my retirement. After the eviction, their credit is even more tarnished.

There's a medical tail wagging their financial dog. My ex still has an open incision, needing a couple of months to heal. After that, she'll need more surgery to remove the colostomy bag, and that'll need more time to heal. No one is certain, but it looks like six months to a year before my ex will be physically able to care for herself. My daughter can look for work, but a job that conflicts with her care-giving will be difficult. I mentioned them being there for Christmas, and I think that's very likely.

On another occasion, I asked my ex to sit outside and talk with me. This is the tricky part, since I'm not sure what prompted me to be so friendly. We sat under the awning in camping chairs. I smoked a cigar and she didn't gripe about the second-hand smoke. The conversation wandered a bit, with me telling her that I was afraid she'd get me angry. She knows where my hot buttons are and I was nervous that she'd find an unexpected one and push it firmly. She replied that she couldn't because without me, they'd have nowhere to live. If I got angry and told her to leave, she'd have nowhere to go. The implicit part is that she has to be nice, or she'll be homeless. Hard to argue with that logic.

Oh, there has been a minor irritation- they watch bad TV. It irks me when I go in to take a break. I grab a water bottle and sit down for a few minutes, but I leave quickly because they watch the kind of TV that requires no intelligence. This is not a deal-killing facet, since I can change the channel if I want, though I seldom do so because I want to get back to work.

The strange part, the key to this whole post, is that I missed having my family very much. I'm not sorry I divorced her, but I regretted not being together with my kids. More than once, I'd mentioned to my big son that if I hadn't divorced his mom, we'd still be together, even if my ex and I slept in different rooms. Well, we are together again, but things aren't the same. Sure, they're pleasant enough, but not the same.

Tomorrow we're taking a load of their stuff to them, a pickup bed full of boxes and my trailer full of bookshelves and bedding. They seem to have found a home in my big family room, and the small room is better organized than it was. I think they'll put some stuff in my storage container container, but we're all downsizing. They used to have a large 2500-square-foot townhouse, and now they're occupying about 500 square feet. When I get the Stockton house ready, I'll rent my Hayward house and move to Stockton, too. Not sure how we'll cram all their stuff and my stuff into one small house, but we'll worry about that later.

We're all five back under the same roof, but we're not the same. I reckon you can't go home again. Maybe things will improve. I don't know. I'll remain confused and hopeful about the future, but for now, I'm not "home again."