Life in the Big City

Weary

Low level anxiety and depression hovering in me, around me. My own personal rain cloud. The pregnancy overwhelms me with fatigue, sending me down for naps every day. The unrelenting pressure of these babies pressing down mirrors the unrelenting pressure of Things I Need To Do Before The Babies Arrive. The Ranch House is equal parts charming and horrifying -- a sweet house with wood floors and pretty views, out in the country, surrounded by goats and chickens, cozy, ours, but also full of mold and termites and scorpions, not nearly big enough for us and all our stuff, a monumental task to make it liveable and workable. No cable, so T1 will be installed, which is great but pricey. No dishwasher. No oven. Inadequate lighting. Peeling paint. Plumbing that isn't quite sound. Propane rather than gas so all appliances must be converted. Furniture that needs to be removed. Furniture that needs to be moved in. The house is far enough from town to make my necessary daily commute to pick up work and bring kids to and from school a cumbersome chore.

And here I sit in a house that is closer to town, big enough, wired, relatively bug-free, and impossible to sell. Not that I really WANT to live here. We're right in the middle of a subdivision that sets my teeth on edge with my neighbors and their obsessively manicured lawns, their colorful seasonal flags, their candle parties. The house is cheaply made, the mortgage payments outrageous. But it's mine, and it's functional, and I'm already in it, and my feeling of inertia gets stronger with each passing day of pregnancy. I feel weary. And it all seems very unfair, although I can't figure out exactly why.