A Man Can Plan

Dear Secret Blogiary,

So the word is in and it is not in my favor. Not that everything has to be about me (though it is nice when it is) and not that I expect to win get my way all the time (although, really, I still don’t understand why I don’t).

Mister W and I had a deep standing-in-the-kitchen conversation about plans for the future tonight. This was probably not the best time to converse about the subject, but as I had finally forced my way through the massive number of secretaries and voice mails and actually managed to speak to the real live lawyer*, I was able to get some basic real estate advice. And the crazy thing was, after I explained what was going one with Mister W’s dad, the house and everything, his legal advice was explicitly simple in design:

Walk Away.

It. Isn’t. Worth. It.

This from a LAWYER!!

Wow.

He laughed and commented that I sounded like I had been raised by “proper” middle class parents who instilled in me a set of rigid morals that kept me on the straight and narrow.

And I certainly was. You pay your debts, pay your taxes and follow the rules. I was good with this system. I like it. It works for me. Everything is structured and symmetrical; which is odd, considering how chaotic and spontaneous I tend to be. I have never understood myself!

In any case, Mister W and I talked and we developed a three year plan. One that unfortunately does not involve me moving to Maine and becoming a lobsterwoman, never mind the fact that looking at waves gets me seasick! The plan then is this:

We walk away from the house, bankroll my paycheck, I keep working at least until the school year is over, and then we pick up an apartment closer to Mister’s work and I can work or not (probably will so as to keep the extra money coming in for the next two years and then Mister W will entertain the possibility of moving back up north. Maybe.

This is something that I have just got to accept. I knew way back when, that Mister W did not want to leave Florida. He likes it here, likes his job and really invested in it. But me? I’ve never been thrilled with Florida. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with it since I came here. I hate it for nine months of the year when the blistering sun bakes the very gray matter in my brain. And Florida loves to torture me with the blistering heat.

There are way more reasons than this, but far too many to go into any great detail. Let’s just say that I came with the understanding that I would remain no more than four years. It has now been ten years and I am more than ready to exit stage right!

The biggest problem I have with this plan is that it puts Big Sis as a junior in high school when the plan magically comes to fruition. And I would feel bad ripping her from school (assuming she didn’t graduate early and head to MIT or Yale because that is how bad-ass her brain is). I hate that I have been unable to provide for her the kind of physical environment I had growing up. I hate that for most of her life she had lived in a city and a crappy one at that! Obviously, I can’t change the fact, I can only do what I can to ease my mind about it (because really, I don’t think she has ever once complained about it except once she mentioned she wanted to live in the country and raise chickens).

Little Sis is, quite honestly, happy wherever. She wants a horse and to live on a farm, but then so did I and that never happened and I turned out mostly sane. I still want to live on a farm though, except, I’d rather have llamas than a horse. And a large concrete wall but that’s a story for another day.

Little Sis seems to have the mindset that home is where Mommy and Daddy are and if we don’t have a horse, chickens or llamas, that’s okay because it is. She is so wise sometimes and makes connections that I just don’t remember making at her age.

I guess what it boils down to is that Mister W needs a plan and I think plans take too long. I’d go tomorrow if Mister W said, “Hey, let’s jam!” I’ll go his way, though, if for no other reason than that while I hate my job, Mister W loves his and he is really good at it. His biggest fear about the “let’s just go” plan is that we’d go and end up in a worse situation where he is in a job that he hates and I can’t find a job I love.

Also, he seems very concerned about food.

Geeze. As if I wouldn’t pack a few granola bars to tide us over.

*Coolest thing about being part of a union, I totally have free access to a lawyer…and of course, by free I mean I make regularly monthly payments to be able to have access to a lawyer.