Indoor Camping: Fixing Up the Fixer-Upper

Monday, September 13, 2004

Life in the Landfill

When people find out you’re living in a fixer they ask, “Are you looking for a divorce?”

“If I could live in fixers with my ex, who was a jerk,” I’d say smugly, “I can certainly live in fixers with Charlie, who’s the opposite of a jerk.”

Nobody argued with me about that. I wore my “I can live in a fixer and you can’t” badge proudly. When people complained about living in a mid-remodel kitchen, I had no sympathy. What babies, I thought. You have no idea what I come home to at night.

Construction trauma is for wimps. If happy couples split up because of the condition of their house, how happy were they? They must have already had problems. They would have divorced anyway.

“It doesn’t bother me,” I say when people hear how I live. “I’m used to it.”

When you say something enough, you can convince yourself it’s true. Then you get a rash on your face. You can lie all you want, but you’re obviously stressed. Anyone can see. Being proud only makes you itch.

I’m too proud to call for help. Instead, like any female, I call my Mom.

“Remember the first Christmas you and Charlie had together?” she says. “You were a mess, then, too.”

“Who wouldn’t be stressed? Charlie’s son and step-daughter resented me, my kids refused to live with me in that dump, and the only things willing to hang around were rats. I honestly don’t know why the rats wanted to live there. It was nicer outside.”

“Men can live in chaos and not even notice,” she insisted. “Women need a place to relax. We’re even weirder at Christmas. We have a need to decorate. It’s chromosomal.”

“I’ve been homeless with four kids, Mom,” I said. “That can’t be it.”

“It’s a control issue. We had a similar discussion this morning, as a matter of fact. There’s nothing you can do, right? You’re waiting around for someone to do something. Even if that someone is wonderful, it’s tough. Meanwhile, you work at home in the middle of it all day long.”

Then she proceeded to tell me all about her step-daughter who’s having real honest-to-God awful problems. I feel guilty for feeling bad. This isn’t a real problem.

Charlie’s sister calls. I can pretend I’m not stressed, but talking at 200 miles an hour proves I am.

“I just want one room done,” I say. “One room.”

“Don’t you know us Blevins’s are famous for not finishing anything?”

“He did the first house pretty quickly.”

“Must have been on good behavior,” she says. “Honeymoon’s over.”

She means well, but I can easily ignore her. She’s never seen anything Charlie’s built.

I have a few minutes to spare, so I naturally end up at Home Depot. I’m racing through the nursery, making quick decisions about permanent landscaping. We’ve got skateboarders committed to working tomorrow. It’s my job to give them enough to do. I’ve got too much to do, myself.

With four plants in my arms, I turn to my cart and see the guy Charlie and I use as a therapist. He used to be a Pastor and now he’s a financial planner. Somehow this combination is perfect for us. We listen to him when he tells us we’re screwing up.

He’s calm and I’m not. I’m trying to keep it superficial, since we’re in the middle of the perennials aisle at a crowded Home Depot where anyone could overhear. This isn’t the time I want to really tell him what’s going on. I do my best to convince him everything’s fine.

“Jill,” he says. “I’ve never seen you like this. You’re going 200 miles an hour. What’s bothering you?”

Not wanting to spit out a hundred-plus word sentence, I try really hard to think clearly. “The house: you have no idea. The step-daughter: I’m scared for her. The youngest stepson: on a plane to Iraq. Work: I’m drowning. All I do is drive 15 year-old girls all around town all day long, getting further behind. I hate driving.”

“Does it really matter?”

“What?”

“Doing all those things; does it really matter?”

“I’m not getting anything done.”

“Why don’t you take tomorrow off,” he says. “When I was in the military, my Sergeant and I worked 16 hour days. We couldn’t get everything done and we were going nuts. We decided to quit and just work eight hours. You know what happened? We got a lot more done. A lot more. Promise me you’ll do nothing tomorrow.”

“But I . . .”

“Promise me.”

“Okay,” I say. “After I do a few . . .”

“Nothing.”

“But Charlie needs me to . . .”

“If I know Charlie, I know he won’t even notice.”

When you hear good advice, take it. I’m sitting in Peet’s reading the whole paper from front to back, following good advice. I haven’t been calm enough to read the paper for months. Maybe I can I stretch this out for a few days. I'm not looking for a divorce, after all.

A little help? [] 3:24:28 PM