If we went to lunch…

I love meeting a friend for lunch and spending an hour speed-chatting and catching each other up on our lives. One of my favorite lunch times in recent memory was meeting Lou for lunch in Chicago, after not having met for YEARS we picked up like it had only been a couple of months. In exactly one hour we covered a tremendous amount of ground, real life stuff that neither of would mention on our blogs or social media feeds. It was glorious. This post–with a little bit of censoring–is what I would talk about if you and I went to lunch, guards down, masks off, real-talk.

I would tell you how much I miss Salt Lake, the mountains, the actual winter, and dear friends and family who are there. Yes, technology and electronic communication makes it easy to stay in touch, but not as easy to stop by for a silly string war with my niece, or to curl up on a friend’s couch and stay up talking until late into the night. And I just cannot find a replacement for soaring granite-topped mountains covered in snow rising from the valley floor like guardians. Stubby outcroppings of desert rock just don’t do it for me.

I would tell you that I am lonely. I work from home and while I enjoy my job (and IM my co-workers most of the day), I don’t have a network of friends here yet (or, really, a single friend), and at my church I’ve been asked to teach a room full of 5-year-olds. In my opinion, this is about the worst job ever. I don’t particularly like 5-year-olds, and certainly not en mass. I have zero adult interaction at church, it’s like I’ve been banished to the kids’ table and I do not like it.

I would probably talk your ear off about how excited I am to attempt a desert vegetable garden. Granted, the planting season here begins in FEBRUARY, so that is a big adjustment in my thinking. This last weekend Blue Eyes and I spent hours working in our backyard. He was finishing up the sprinkling system while I pulled weeds and trimmed trees and spiky fern thingies and tried to plan out garden boxes. We are going to the Home and Garden show next weekend and I’m probably more excited about it than is normal.

I would probably go more in detail about my role as a stepmom and the frustrations, anxieties, and very little joy that comes along with it. It is a ridiculously thankless job. Not that I’m expecting hand-written thank you notes from an 11-year-old or 13-year-old for making them dinner, nothing like that. Half the time I don’t even expect a verbal “thank you.” It’s the rest of the thanklessness that is hard. As a parent, you get these moments of joy and unconditional love for your child on the regular; I don’t have that. Ever. I am not “allowed” to develop that kind of relationship with my kids (and yes, I’d tell you the rest of the details about all of that).

I would tell you that part of my not-so-subliminal effort to make friends and put down some sort of roots here in the desert is by signing up for classes and courses. I’ve been looking at (but have yet to take the plunge) courses in Spanish, vegetable gardening, painting, and landscape design. I think it’s lucky that I moved to Arizona during their mild season, winter is when people get out and do things because it’s 60 degrees and blue skies. Come summer (my standard “get out and do things!” season), people tend to hunker down next to the AC and pray for the hellish heat to pass.

Hmmm…it seems I’m kind of a depressing lunch date. Hopefully in a couple of months I will find a better routine and some People (yes, capitalized) and come out of my shell a bit. Until then, what would you tell me if we went to lunch?

Harriet sig

 

 

 

Previous post: If we went to lunch… (July, 2014)

0 thoughts on “If we went to lunch…

  1. Britt

    I can’t imagine how hard the transition is to move out of state and have to find roots again. I’m a very slow root finder. I’d be in trouble! Props, friend.

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  2. Saskia

    That it’s lonely here, too, and that I’ve signed up for classes in the hope of meeting people, too (a clinic and a series of progressive road bike rides, in my case). That I’m in the weird space of not actively working on my dissertation, but not being done with it, either. That I went to church here and it was … weird so I’m going to shop around a little bit. (I’d probably complain about getting callings that don’t fit you, because that is the worst and I would never stick you in a room full of 5 year olds if I were in charge.) That I’ve been reading _The Child Catchers_ and would to talk about the intricacies of international adoption. That I’ve been cooking again, and that’s been great, and that there’s been family drama and I’m trying to avoid it. That is does get better, and that you will be okay, because you are strong and you can do this. And hopefully how delicious lunch is, because yay for good food!

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