When I first moved into this house last June, the first thing that struck my attention was the extreme heat. During the hustle and bustle of moving in, a lot of the toys my girls normally kept in the garage at the old place wound up on the back patio here, and within weeks they were so sun-blasted that a lot of them became worthless. It was so hot that when the bus started coming to pick up the girls at 7:30 AM, I would wait inside because it was too hot to wait on the porch (at 7:30 AM – did I mention that?). I remember thinking that cooler weather would be such a nice change that I wouldn’t care how cold it got, as long as it wasn’t hot. Better, I reasoned to deal with one condition (cold) than two (heat and sun).

Then the winter came, and it got cold alright. I got a nice reality check when the snowstorms started, one of which was so strong it knocked out the local power grid for miles and left us without power for a week. That might sound simple – just find a hotel, right? Well we did, but it was a massive ordeal. We have animals in the house that require power for life support and food in the fridge we didn’t want spoiled, so we ran the generator outside. This meant I had to drive to the house every day over snow-covered streets, walk down the sloped yard of clay mud to fill the generator with fuel, take the fuel cans to a gas station, fill them up, drive them back to the house, try to get the mud and snow off my shoes and the fuel off my hands… all of this with my kids in tow, both of whom are restless and anxious by this point. While I’m at the house, I’m trying to switch out dirty clothes for clean ones, plus I’m trying to melt ice for water so I can flush the toilets which have no water since the well pump has no power… fun stuff, right?

A couple weeks ago the last of the winter snow melted and although it’s still quite cold in the mornings, the temperature rises enough during the day to make working outside comfortable. I’ve been able to start back up on my outdoor projects. The kids can finally play on the playground again. The sun emerges earlier and hangs around longer in the afternoon.

I feel like the punishing cold of the last couple months have made it difficult for me to really get on my feet here, having to put off projects and improvements until I can actually go outside without freezing. Yesterday I had one of those standby generators installed so that I’d never have to deal with a power outage again. One of my bigger projects has been to build a mini-boutique for the girls in the basement, and although there’s a lot of work I still want to do on it, it is at least operational now.

And what a success it has been! Madison, who has significant sensory issues, has been so averse to having her hair washed her entire life that at shower time every night she demands that I don’t wash her hair – even though there was never intent to wash it. But after having her hair washed in her little boutique, she has come home from school every day asking to go in there and have her hair washed. That’s the first time in her life she has ever made that request, but now it’s every day. I’ve actually had to tell her that her hair doesn’t need to be washed and that we’ll do it later. This is what I was hoping to achieve – a situation where she enjoys the process of having her hair done – and it has worked out perfectly.

My next projects involve finishing my small gym inside the house and then the larger gym I have out in the exterior building. I still have plenty of improvements to make on that boutique, and there are some improvements I want to make outside. The thing I’m most excited about is the prospect of starting my botanical garden in the next few weeks. Next month my oldest daughter is visiting and I’ll get to see my grandkids for the first time. It still feels strange to say grandkids, but I suspect I’ll get used to it pretty quickly.

All the things that have occurred in my life recently have conspired to pry me out of my comfort zone and back into the world of other people. It hasn’t been easy; I’m still trying to find ways to reconstruct the sort of life I had in my early 20’s – the kind where there were always people around, friends to call, knocks on my door, and invitations for weekend get-togethers. So far I’ve encountered situations that made me question whether making new friends is even worth the effort, but I’m going to continue trying to overcome the inertia that has kept me in my desk chair for the last couple years. I’m writing more, reading more, building more, and exercising more; I believe staying mentally and physically fit goes a long way in helping one stay resilient through uncertain times.

I can tell you that my optimism, while alive, is vulnerable. It wouldn’t take much for me to feel like “Okay, you know what? Fuck this, fuck all of you, and fuck everyone outside these four walls.” but I don’t feel that way right now. Right now I feel like the sun is shining, the ice is melting, the cold is warming, and the world outside my window looks beautiful. I am looking forward to the future.

It’s alright.