Several days ago the book containing all the necessary forms was picked up from Little Professor. Tonight they get completed and ready for submission. Since my handwriting is far less than perfect, I won't be filling out the fields. Instead, my function is to proofread. With chips and dip on table, ready for the long haul, we begin...
As details are ironed out, I slip into a good Bud Ice buzz to quell the awkward weirdness and palpable surreality of the moment. Page after page, I look, nod, and point out missing info. Posessions are split. Decisions are made. Much sooner than anticipated, though, everything is done. Just under an hour. It's almost disconcerting just how easy that was. I'm sure there's more red tape in store.
Wednesday the papers get filed.
I drive to Staples to make the required four copies of each page, Anna Nalick spinning in the CD player:
The sheets are carfully slid one by one into the corner of the glass. Copies, four, start. Affadavit... copies, four, start. Waiver... copies, four, start. I'm being watched, so I make sure to carefully mark each group of four copies I make. Copies, four, start, hash mark, copies, four, start, hash mark, until a stack of paper has amassed, and the last page has been printed off. 88 copies for $5- something. Not bad.
Driving to Mom's house, on Eldean Road it finally hits me... the gravity of what I was just doing. I pull over into a gravel lot at a propane truck refill station to collect my thoughts. I've just been smacked upside the head with a cocktail of feelings, the likes of which I've never felt before. Fear, thrill, excitement, dismay, doom, relief, guilt, anxiety, happiness, sadness.
The intensity of the sadness takes me by surprise.
As details are ironed out, I slip into a good Bud Ice buzz to quell the awkward weirdness and palpable surreality of the moment. Page after page, I look, nod, and point out missing info. Posessions are split. Decisions are made. Much sooner than anticipated, though, everything is done. Just under an hour. It's almost disconcerting just how easy that was. I'm sure there's more red tape in store.
Wednesday the papers get filed.
I drive to Staples to make the required four copies of each page, Anna Nalick spinning in the CD player:
And hidin' beneath my blankets and sheets
I'm finally free
I'm killin' the ghost of you, and I'm close to
Awakening me
Yeah, yeah
So I'm takin' my heart and I'm gettin' me out
And love's something that I wouldn't wanna live without
So I'm takin' my heart and I'm gettin' me out
On my own, my own, my own
The sheets are carfully slid one by one into the corner of the glass. Copies, four, start. Affadavit... copies, four, start. Waiver... copies, four, start. I'm being watched, so I make sure to carefully mark each group of four copies I make. Copies, four, start, hash mark, copies, four, start, hash mark, until a stack of paper has amassed, and the last page has been printed off. 88 copies for $5- something. Not bad.
Driving to Mom's house, on Eldean Road it finally hits me... the gravity of what I was just doing. I pull over into a gravel lot at a propane truck refill station to collect my thoughts. I've just been smacked upside the head with a cocktail of feelings, the likes of which I've never felt before. Fear, thrill, excitement, dismay, doom, relief, guilt, anxiety, happiness, sadness.
The intensity of the sadness takes me by surprise.
posted by Grover at 9/09/2005 10:32:00 PM
3 Comments:
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One chapter ends as a new one begins. The first chapter doesn't disappear into thin air. No, the second chapter builds from the it. You can return to read the first chapter anytime you want, through pictures, your writings, your memories. The next chapter wouldn't make sense without the last one, it takes them all to make us complete.
I will always keep the photos, and the blog, and my three songs sprung from the ordeal.
Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. But there were good times, and I will remember them as well.
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