House on sale today.  The listing.

The House: Staged.  Stripped of it finery.  My finery.  Even the periwinkle walls of my bedroom are bleached white.  Adorned with ersatz tchotchkes and fake ferns.  Upstairs hall echos when I call up to Julia in the morning.  The ethos of the house is a disturbing dream of a home I have abandoned but not left.  Dali or Esher-like?

Me: tired, grumpy, stressed. Discovering how home is rooted in the art on my walls and the books on their shelves. Terrified that the pace of change is picking up. Yes, I know, I pushed that stone down the hill.

Packed Boxes: 33 of art and books.   

Julia: Lots of behavior this week.  Not the good kind.  Tantruming and threatening.  Hard to talk down.  Yesterday at school, she intentionally smashed her iPhone on the ground, breaking its glass. 

Question: What would my behavior be like if I I believed it would get attention and relieve stress? Not sure whose attention I could make a bid for.

The silver lining to this dark cloud of a week: Five viewings scheduled tomorrow night and Saturday before the Sunday Open House.  

Grand plan, if all goes swimmingly: we ‘collect’ offers during the weekend and decide what to accept on Monday.  Yeah, I know, the gods have a habit of laughing.   

Another silver lining: Friends who have listened to me moan and groan (and boy, have I vented at the slightest query of my spirits) and have been nothing but loving and supportive even though I intend to leave them.  

A-ha: Coming up short, realizing that I am going back to the East Coast.  I lusted for this return since we left in ’89.  The lust has been bleached out like my periwinkle walls.  No longer am I returning to the promised land. 

Final silver lining: Cheshire has been welcoming every step of my way.  No more could I want.

Niggling feeling behind my eyes: Just a little scared.  Self-counsel whispers that I have been to Europe and Australia with only Julia as a companion.  I can do anything but the ‘what ifs’ loom large at 2 in the morning.

Pause: Julia wanted her hair dyed a myriad of colors for more than a year.  There seemed to be an unspoken Cheer rule about hair dye, or at least, no one in that crowd does it.  The season ended and we headed to our hairdresser.  The result pleases both of us.