1. sciencewoman
  2. Last night

Last night

By skookumchick on August 10, 2008.



Photo from 2005, before many paint, gutter, and plant upgrades

i-f875c0b07d9b3cb6229668554781b35a-alice.jpgI'm sitting at our dining room table in Illinois, and the sunlight is slanting through the windows onto the wall where a favorite print used to live. The moving truck comes tomorrow to move the rest of our furniture to Indiana, and we close on the sale of the house on Thursday. So this is the last night we'll spend in the house that we moved into in 2003 (before we were married, or even engaged!).

I'm a little sad. Not because we're facing the end of the long-distance commuting (on and off for most of the 10 years we've been together), but because all around me in this house are things we've worked on together - putting in a fab garden, stripping the woodwork (ok, that was mostly the husband), refinishing the floors, painting the inside and out. The bushes and trees are bigger now than when we first moved here, that's for sure. The house fits us - I guess, fit us - and while our new house will grow to fit us, I'm going to miss being here.

I know by the end of the week the prospect of really having no more long-distance commuting and both of us living in a sum-total of ONE HOUSE will have wiped away this regretful feeling. But for the last night we spend here, in our first house together, I can be a little sad.

Tags
Alice shares...
trials of two cities

More like this

The story about my husband giving up his job
Hahahah, I foolishly thought that, when summer officially started, my life would settle down. Hohoho, so why don't I try to complicate things by, oh, I don't know, how about moving, and putting our house on the market? So here are some updates that give a somewhat authentic snapshot of what I'm…
Scientiae: What I did on my summer vacation
The Scientiae theme for September is "my summer vacation." My first week of class started today, so perhaps this is a good way to remind myself of what I've done this summer. We had dinner early in May at a friend and colleague's house to acknowledge my husband's decision to step away from his…
Alice's tips for (childless) long-distance commuting
As I'm transitioning away from an academic/personal life of long-distance commuting, I thought this would be a good time (or perhaps the last good time?) to share some of my tips for how to help one's marriage/partnership survive two academic careers in two cities. Of course, I only have this last…
A tale of two people in two cities, part I
My husband and I will have been "together" for 10 years this July. Of those 10 years, we have lived about 3.5 in the same city. It's a hard gig. We met when I was an undergrad and Steve was a grad student (scandalous!) over the summer when I was home from college, working in a water chemistry lab…

I can sympathize with the mixed feelings! I realized I've spent 10% of my life in Switzerland and moving home will be a big change. Very welcome, but still big and I will miss some things.