The Other Shoe

I had a blog planned for this week. It was going to be about how I am constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. We’ve had a string of bad luck the past few years and we’ve been on the up and up and I am still waiting for the other shoe to fall. It was going to be a positive, happy blog about how, in spite of everything being sunshine and sparkles, I still dread the possibility it could fall apart.

Well, some shoes dropped.

Nothing serious or detrimental. In a nutshell, it was a few things that I responded with “Oh, right, there it is.” No point diving into all of them but one that I was going to write excitedly about.

This is a lesson in ‘don’t get excited before you get the details’ because adulthood is often full of disappointment.

We love where we live. We want to upgrade and we figured might as well let our management know early. So we did. We said we’d like a two bedroom and had no floor preference. Magically, there was an apartment on our floor that was two bedrooms, TWO bathrooms and had a city view. Now, where we live in Jersey, we have a city view outside of our building. A full skyline view. I can see the GWB and the Freedom Tower by looking left to right. On good days, the Statue of Liberty. It’s beautiful.

I have had a dream of having a city view since my heart said Go to New York. So basically, since I was nine years old. We looked at this apartment a few days ago and of course, fell deep in love. It was huge, newly renovated, and the view could make you cry. It was perfect.

We started dreaming which was our first mistake. I don’t want to discourage dreaming because I am a big believer in dreaming big. But we went in with plans for a full size Christmas tree, how we would set up the living room, the office, what we would need for the kitchen storage wise. We made a packing plan for moving. We told a few friends but limited it because we knew there was a possibility we would not get it. However, it had been on the market a month and our building manager and super made it seem like this would be ours. They were excited for us.

We told the manager we loved it. She wrote back on Wednesday that an application had been put in and was processing. She would let us know if it falls through.

While this pisses me off for multiple reasons, it is the other shoe I’ve been waiting for. I’ve had other shoes fall but it was this one that hit the floor the loudest. This was the shoe because it was a step we have been waiting for . We had a two bedroom in Vermont but here, it is harder to find one in the right price range. This apartment was far below market value and we could afford it. We were ready to expand here and have an office/possibly nursery. We could plan for our future. We thought the universe was telling us it was time and though it would be a hectic few weeks of packing and moving, we could do it.

So my blog changed from talking about how the other shoe may never drop and it’s frustrating to wait for it constantly to the other shoe dropping and me screaming I TOLD YOU SO at myself.

I guess I should be grateful that it finally did and even though I am devastated, it wasn’t a serious shoe drop. The other smaller, quieter shoes are not serious either. They are more reminders that bad luck can happen at any time. Being a grownup is knowing things fall apart because that is how life works. You learn to mourn it, accept it and move on.

The bigger lesson here and what this blog now covers is that I can’t keep expecting the worst. It’s like I am sitting by the door waiting for the bell to ring and disaster to be there with a packed suitcase ready to move in. We had a string of bad luck, yes, but we changed our lives because of it. We moved back and have lives we are living to the fullest. I’m having a great time when before I was having an okay time and just trying to survive the day. Shoes will drop. Waiting for them and guessing what and when they will be is a habit I have to break. Though I was right about this one, I may not be about the next. I used to think that made the wins sweeter but it only makes the dread heavier.

In the end, shit happens. Plan accordingly.