Home... Less

Otherwise known as... Taking the Plunge

My new home has a pool.  It's longer than most backyard pools, which allows for great lap-swimming.  I was on the swim team when I was in high school.  Mr. and Mrs. Harris were the coaches, among other younger folk who would come in and be assistant coaches.  Every afternoon, from early August to mid-November, you would find me and my fellow teammates in the pool, working our... everything... off.  My event was the 500, which is a 500-yard swim.  While I was not so fast, I had great endurance, and that lent itself to swimming the 500.  I would prepare by swimming a mile at a time.  To me, the pool is not a place to meander and read the latest chick-lit, but a place to train.  The first week I lived here, Chuck kept asking me when I was going to start enjoying the pool.  I was focusing on moving my things into the new space, and then, of course, prepping for the colonoscopy.  Neither situation is very conducive to someone such as myself relaxing in the pool.  I waited two days until after the procedure, and then I took the plunge.  I swam only twenty laps that day, with up and back being one lap.  The next day I doubled that amount.  Now I swim two sets of twenty-five laps for a total (of course) of fifty laps each morning.  It has been good to get back into the pool.  I wear a Speedo bikini, a black swim cap to keep my hair out of the way, and the requisite Speedo goggles, guaranteed to give me the most incredible set of goggle-eyes at the conclusion of the workout. 

I will never understand people who can get into a pool and play Marco Polo, or float about and read a book.  My friend Dee says that it would be good for me to learn how to relax in the pool.  While I cannot yet find relaxation and fun in the pool, it has been good for me to return to a regular workout... that feels like home.  Even if it leaves me with goggle eyes at the end.  When I return to work next month, I can definitely see myself getting into the pool once I've gotten home to swim the day's issues out of my mind.  It is much too hot right now to go running, and I am gladly enjoying the substitution of this wonderful swimming pool.  

My own home, or should I say former home, was sold this past Friday.  The closing papers are signed.  It is finished.  I am home... less.  But you know, it feels so good to have all of the pain and uncertainty of this past year behind me.  I have been blessed with renting a room in a beautiful, relaxing, splendid home just minutes from my work.  My roommate, Chuck, has been great.  When he comes out of his room, he always asks me what I am up to.  I'll say, I'm writing.  Inevitably, Chuck will exclaim, "Oh... you are BLOGGING!"  as he somewhat has been following Single and finds it curious that I can write about my personal life for all to enjoy.  

Chuck is a very popular guy.  At 46, he gets a lot  of phone calls.  In the afternoon when he emerges from his room and turns on his phone, it's like a little symphony plays for just the two of us while all the bells and whistles go off letting him know that he had gotten a call, a text, a message, whatever.  He works nights driving a truck, and has no shortage of attention from the outside world when he is unavailable.  He talks to me a little bit about his interactions with the opposite sex, and I talk to him about mine.  He has a really funny way of exclaiming, REALLY, when someone says something that he finds hard on his ears.  We make good roommates (housemates, actually), and I absolutely appreciate the blessing Chuck has offered in opening his home to me. I am a very lucky girl, and I know it.

This past weekend was a mixture of spending time with family and Jerry.  I attended a celebration of life service on Friday in Jacksonville for my father's cousin's husband, Jim, with my great-aunt Betty Ann and her daughter, Nancy.  Jim had been sick for some time, and I had no idea that he was so close to death.  I think that because my own father has been sick, a lot of details had been kept from us because we had enough to deal with.  I appreciate that.  In my own selfish way I just wish I'd had a chance to talk to Jim one more time.  He had this way of making me feel like what I said mattered.  He would ask me about my life in Japan, and about education in America, and he really listened.  We had very different political and religious viewpoints, but we respected each other, and although I know he is celebrating in Heaven, there is definitely a space left here on Earth since Jim was called home. 

Friday morning I met my great-aunt and her daughter Nancy in Daytona in order to make the drive to Jacksonville together.  My great-aunt Betty Ann (although she prefers to be called just plain Betty old habits die hard) and her husband, Uncle Glenn, have been married for 61 years.  They met when Uncle Glenn was in the Navy, and were married in my grandparents' house.  When Aunt Betty Ann was a child, her fingers got too close to the stove and were burned badly.  As a result, she has a couple of fingers that are just kind of... nubs... and she holds her hand closed so people don't notice.  

Growing up, I never knew this about her.  When Aunt Betty Ann (who is my grandfather's sister) and Uncle Glenn moved to their condo in Daytona eight years ago, I would visit them once or twice a year to catch up.  A few years ago I noticed her fingers, and asked Aunt Betty Ann what happened.  She told me the story, shocked that I had never noticed before.  She also told me that on her first date with Uncle Glenn, she was walking next to him, and he clasped her hand in his.  She went to move to the other side of him, saying her other hand was better, and he told her, I want to hold this hand.  She says this is how she knew he was The One.  I really love that story. 

On the flip side, Uncle Glenn looked at me just before I left on Saturday morning, and said, Jennifer, you are running out of time!  At 36, I am very, very old in my southern family to have never been married.  I looked him in the eye and told him that yes, I want to get married and maybe have children, but if it never happens for me it's not going to get in the way of me having a good life.  God has a plan, and I cannot put His plan on my own time line. Uncle Glenn just wants me to be loved.  I get that.  He and Aunt Betty Ann are very, very lucky people to have found each other so young, and to have had each other to lean on through the years. They are a beautiful example of what it means to be married.

Saturday morning I drove from Daytona to Sanford, and spent a lovely weekend with Jerry and the dogs.  Saturday night we enjoyed the splendor of Sanford nightlife whilst meeting up with a few friends at the Sanford Wine Company, and on Sunday we watched the final Harry Potter film and I made Thai green curry with shrimp for dinner.  The film was amazing and the curry delicious, if I do say so myself.  Jerry made the rice and took the tails off the shrimp, and I worked on the dish itself.  We made a great team in the kitchen.  After dinner we took the dogs for a walk before settling in to watch 60 Minutes for a bit of relaxing time before retiring to a wonderful night of deep sleep.

It was one great weekend... even if I am home... less.