Melancholy baby…

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I’m in some kind of major funk today. It’s not pleasant or even comfortable, so I won’t be in it for long.

I got caught up with my ex-wife today, and she told me that her house sold on the first day she listed it, to the first people who looked at it. I did a search on the web to see what she had listed it for, and found it here.

I clicked on the various view options and had these wistful thoughts:

Area View Thoughts
Entry Foyer
  • God, that’s a big-ass TV. She’s bought that since the last time I was there.
  • That’s the same dining room table we bought together. I guess I knew she had the seats reupholstered to meticulously match the rug.
  • Inside that china cabinet there is one item that is the only thing I want from her estate.
Master Bedroom
  • It’s funny, I can’t be positive, but I think that dresser and bureau are the same ones we had when we were together. I could have sworn we had posts on our bed, though, and I find it hard to believe that she would have bought a new bed, but not a new dresser and bureau with it. They certainly don’t look bad together or anything, that just seems more like something I’d do than she.
  • That painting over the bed, that’s from the house we had custom built together. It used to hang in the den—the very room I was standing in when this picture was taken, and now that I’m thinking about it, we had another one by the same artist also hung in the den. I wonder if I have it somewhere stashed away here. It’s possible. If so, I should give it to her, as it’s not being used here.

Kitchen
  • We had that table in the nook custom made. I’m quite certain that several years ago, she swapped out the tiles that make the design in the middle of it to match her latest decor.
  • The rest of that kitchen is all her.

Backyard
  • That picture, in spite of being in 360°, doesn’t anywhere near do it justice. She’s just created a beautiful, beautiful space back there. Maybe it’s because the foliage hasn’t sprung to life yet.

So, soon begins a new era in our relationship, as she will actually be moving to Charlotte.

I came out to her in 1993, we separated immediately, but we didn’t divorce for 3 years after that, as I didn’t have a job with decent medical benefits, and she kept me on hers. I can’t even begin to articulate how wonderful she was about the entire ordeal.

At the time of our divorce, we owned three houses—the “big one” that we built together, a townhouse down by State with a $379 mortgage payment that we rented for years and years at $700-$900 a month at various times, and a fully paid for 3-bedroom ranch in Jacksonville, NC. that we’d bought as a second investment property. In the settlement, she took the big house, and I took the other two.

I moved into the townhouse, stayed there for a couple of years, met a guy, was in a 6.5-year relationship with him during which we bought a house together, and I put the townhouse back in service as rental property.

Over the course of being in that house, I gave the Jacksonville house to my niece and nephew, transferring enough of a percentage of the house to each of them over three years to avoid taxes. I was planning to leave it to them in my will, but I thought, why not make sure they always have a place to live if the want/need one. So I did it while I was alive.

My partner and I split in 2002, and I moved back into my townhouse, where to this day, I enjoy my $379-a-month mortgage payment. 🙂

With the proceeds of the sale of the “big house,” my ex-wife bought a 3-bedroom ranch, which she stayed in for a few years, and then bought the “bigger house”—the one that just sold.

All that is to say that over the years we’ve always been in the same town—both in Camp Lejeune, NC during high school, both in Greenville at ECU, married and both working for IBM for 16 years in Raleigh, and then our separate ways from 1994 until now. Always in touch, meeting for breakfast every month or two when we could mesh our schedules, and seeing each other’s parents when we could.

She’s bought a new house in Charlotte with her boyfriend, Rob, whom I really like. It’s funny, all these years she was always afraid that I’d be the one to move away.

I have scheduled a trip to NYC with my friend Joe to accommodate his birthday, which means that I’ll be out of town on April 27th—Robert’s and my 5th anniversary.

Even though I checked with him first—and not at all surprising, he said he was fine with it—I still feel lousy about the whole thing.

Class was a real downer tonight. My presentation is not at all what it needs to be. Now I’m in the abyss about both the project and the oral defense.

Oh, yeah, and I’m sick again. A cold this time.

Oh well, to quote a new friend, “The sun will come up tomorrow.” No, you may not call me Annie!

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