Part 24. Move in Party and Meltdowns

It wasn’t long before our new house was buzzing with activity. A couple of our friends came up to stay the rest of the weekend to help move us in. Family came throughout the day on Saturday to help clean and paint. We were surrounded by support and love and we were so grateful.

As the day wrapped up and people filed out it was down to just myself, Ryan, his best friend and a friend he brought that we met that day. It blew my mind a bit, that someone we didn’t know beyond hearing the name a bunch in passing conversations, was willing to give up their weekend, drive a state up to help us move AND stay at our house. Expecting nothing in return? I wasn’t like obligated to then help this person in return? Wild.

What blew my mind again was how quickly I felt comfortable with this person. It was as if when they walked through our door that first time and that was it they were part of our circle, if they wanted to be anyway. I felt safe and happy as I watched those three boys…men sorry three men all with glorious manly man beards and shit, sit on pallets in our new backyard drinking beer, having a fire and chatting. My heart cracked a little in that moment, we had a home and we had our people.

Not just a house but a home we could create beautiful memories in, that no one could take from us. I will forever cherish the photo I took from our kitchen window over the sink of them sitting at their fire.

I happily continued playing house while they enjoyed their boy time. I had achieved my goal, every room was painted and cleaned and I could start settling in. I don’t exactly know why painting each room was so important to me, I think maybe it’s because I needed the house to immediately feel more mine. Partly though it was because I hated her color scheme. Not my preference at all…I chose colors that felt calming to me, cozy and comfortable and us.

When we got up on Sunday I made the boys breakfast, my first chance to host in our new house. I got excited about feeding them and taking care of them while they were under our roof. It brought back memories of my Memere who’d I spent so much time with growing up. She was a pillar in who I am today. I am me, partly because I am her and I love that about myself.

Being a Memere you did not go to her house without eating, she brought people together with her cooking and her company. Our family suffered a great tragedy the day we lost her, she was the nucleus of our family.

After the boys were fed I sent them on their way, to leave me and my house to get acquainted. Thankfully no one else came that day. Someone is going to read that and say I am ungrateful. Others will read that and say “Amen, Sister” people, even great and wonderful people, can be fucking exhausting especially when my cup was totally empty…

I am so grateful for all the help, love and support we received in that first weekend. I don’t believe we could have gotten all that I wanted done without it.

When my house honeymoon ended, I returned to hell…I mean work. I am so grateful for my coworker and friend for covering me so I could take the weekend off to be home I needed that so very badly.

Things at work got worse and worse, now that no one had the ability to take my house from me, including my employer. I started my next plan on getting out of this job. I started applying everywhere, thankful for my vast experience and strong work ethic. I knew I could find something to get me out of there, I posted my resume and was found almost immediately. A company reached out to me for a management position, in my industry. I interviewed and was offered the position, I told them of my role and responsibilities at my current job and my need to give an extended notice of 1 month to allow my employer to try to replace me.

Again I cannot discuss my employment in detail at this job due to the word doc I was required to sign in order to receive my final pay. What I will say is I have never in my life been yelled at and blamed when quitting a job, then asked to extend my notice into the new year. I said no, and left when I said I would be.

As we neared the end of our time there. My coworker also decided to leave, as there were no employees left in the business. The more we chatted the more we decided our time together couldn’t be done, we were not ready to take corporate jobs. We knew we need to come back together as soon as we could.

We decided to open our own business instead. We started Mountain View Dogs with no money, and a loose plan/idea, and the will to live differently.