Gertie the guinneapig: 2007-2011

My mother used to always say that in order to truly feel at home somewhere, you need to spend a full year there and go through all the different seasons and holidays in your new location. She was right, you know. In order to really "know" a house, a neighborhood, and a town, you need to experience it on a bright sunny day as well as a week of endless rain, a freezing morning, and when everything seems to be in bloom. You need to celebrate your birthday there, open Christmas presents, and hunt for Easter eggs. Only when you've done all of that, will you truly be able to remember that place as a real "home".

As of yesterday, however, I think I can add one more milestone that will cement any location as a place to remember: the death of a pet. Although I never quite thought about it that way, I can still to this day, tell you where all of my childhood pets are buried, which town, which house, and which spot in the backyard. I may not remember the house number, or where my best friend used to live, but I can tell you that Snoopy the rabbit is buried under a half-dead bush in the backyard by the hedge, and that Sigi the guinneapig was buried next to the shed with a pretty rock marking the spot. And, unfortunately, I can now also add our awesome pig with a 'tude, Gertie to that list. Gertie, you see, was buried under my mother's day rosebush in the front yard yesterday (since burying her in the backyard would mean that the dogs would definitely dig her up, and that's one experience I can do without).

Although I've been the proud owner of lots of guinneapigs, Gertie was special. We bought Gertie when the reality of "this is your home now" hit me about four years ago on a Tuesday night in September. We had moved into our house a little over a month before, I had been working at my then new, now current, job for about two weeks, and our life was beginning to look pretty settled. After two months of living like nomads, saying goodbye to dear friends, and, more importantly, giving away my guinneapig Cali (they don't do well on ten-hour plane rides), this should have felt like a big sigh of relief. But instead, knowing that "this was it", the place where I was to feel at home for at least a number of years, freaked me out beyond belief. Here? The bible belt? The place where you can't cuss in public or buy alcohol on Sunday? Really?

So husband-dear, once again displaying the main reason I love that man so much, he understood. And listened. And when I, between possibly overly dramatic sobs, hiccuped, "And I had to give Cali away!", he asked, "Well, we can go and buy a new guinneapig, you know?"
The tears ceased immediately, "We can?'"
"Sure. Why not. The kids would love it."
And so off we went to PetSmart, on a Tuesday evening. And picked the guinneapig that someone had returned, because I have a soft spot for animals no one else wants.

Thus began our life with Gertie the guinneapig. She lived in a large cage in the corner of our kitchen, ate lots and lots of vegetables, and became best friends with Shelby. She loved running outside along the fence, and had the most obnoxious, tangled hair ever.

And yesterday morning, it came to an end.
I'm not sure why, Gertie wasn't sick, she'd been eating like it was going out of style, and I'd played with her only the day before. But when I came into the kitchen, remembered I had to feed her before I left, and then noticed that she didn't move when I rattled her box of food, I knew something wasn't right. And it wasn't. Gertie, as they like to say down here, had passed on.

I'd love to tell you I was very pragmatic about it, realized she'd lived a good, full, four years, and gave her a decent burial, but, unfortunately, I can't. I wanted to do all those things, but first of all, I started to cry. And then I realized I simply couldn't touch my dead guinneapig. But then I also realized I couldn't just leave her in her cage, dead, as I wouldn't be home until at least 10 that night, and it would hardly be fair to just let husband-dear find when he got home. And then when I couldn't reach husband-dear because he was in a meeting, I really didn't know what to do.
So much for being a liberated woman.

Thank goodness, I got a hold of husband-dear, cried on his shoulder, and he told me he would be fine burying Gertie when he got home from work. And he did.

So there it is, the end of the Gertie era. The first four years have passed..now let's go for the second four?! (oh, dear mother of Mary and all her angels, no!).

Saying goodbye..

...why is it sad?
Makes us remember the good times we had..

Saying Goodbye ~ The Muppets

Does this look familiar to anyone? Well, it should, as I just now realized that back in 2010 I wrote a blog that started with the exact same title and lyrics. And interestingly, that blog pretty much covers the lament that was going to make up the beginning of this blog. You know, all about how although moving itself gets easier, saying goodbye to dear friends doesn't. But now that I've already written that down once, I guess I'm free to move on to the meat and potatoes (or pasta and salad if you prefer).

After saying goodbye to Mary in June, to Jess only on Wednesday, and knowing that I'll have to say goodbye to Shelly in about five weeks, I sat down and tried to figure out why saying goodbye gets harder when you get older. And, I'm sure you'll be delighted to know, I think I got it. At least for now.

You see,  as you get older, your life story lengthens and becomes more complicated. Stuff happens, and adds to who you are, and your outlook on life. But even though it plays an integral role in shaping who you are, it's simply too much and too long to have to share over and over again with people you just met. Yet without sharing the story of your life, these people will never know you as well as people who do know every little chapter. And that's what makes this whole, "Hey honey, guess what!? We're moving to Langley/Italy/Idaho" a lot harder with every move.

Normal people (and I'm not implying that military wives, or people who move a lot are somehow abnormal (although I could make a case if you want me to), but let's assume that "normal people" refers to people who don't pick up sticks and move ever few years), well, they have people in their lives who have been there through at least some of the significant chapters in their lives. People who know why you hate going to baby showers for instance, or can't stand hearing a certain song on the radio. People who understand your in-jokes, and know you don't like chocolate ice cream. When you move a lot, it's really difficult to find people like that, and let me tell you (in case my griping hasn't clarified this by now), that gets old, really fast.

With Shelly's departure, for instance, I will no longer have any friends who were there when I went through the "no-babies-for-us" drama. Kay and Shelly were front and center went all that went down over two years ago. Although I can honestly say that I'm pretty much over it (for now - you know, let's not count our chickens before they've hatched and all that, and wow, could I have picked a worse metaphor here?), it is an important part of who I am, and yet none of newer friends can really know how it shaped me, just because they weren't there. And that's just weird, for lack of a better word.

But this is where I'm completely inconsistent. Reading all of this, you would think that I want nothing more but live somewhere for a really long time. In reality, however, the answer to that option is a loud and heartfelt oh-dear-mother-of-mary-NO. As far as I'm concerned, actually, we've been here long enough already.  And this isn't just because of the location, but really because I can't stand the thought of living anywhere for more than a few years. Naturally, I blame my parents for this, who had me moving around every few years starting at a very young ways. When I got older, I just couldn't stop.

However, I'm sure you see my dilemma. I hate saying goodbye to friends, yet I hate living in the same place for an extended period of time. In scientific terms, this is called cognitive dissonance, and according to a variety of very learned scholars, I should not be able to live with this dissonance. If tens of studies are to be believed, I will, upon discovering the dissonance, change the belief that I like to move, or change my attitude towards saying goodbye. I'm not sure what the consequences will be if I don't, but the fact of the matter is that I've living with this dissonance in a semi-content state for several years now. This cannot be a good thing for my overall health.

Or I could just go for a nice long run and pretend none of this is real, and Shelly's orders will be canceled. Sounds like a great plan to me...