X Marks the Spot

When we first moved to Pennsylvania, our first few months were pretty darn ugly. We both had an incredibly hard time adjusting to our new surroundings. I was unemployed for a painful two months and Gus was on 16-week ICU nursing assignment that was way, way below par. We were lonely and staring down close to three years in a city that we, at that time, hated. Wrap that all up in the interminable heat and we were, in a word, miserable.

One day, as I waited in vain for either the phone to ring or a freak snowstorm to blow through, having had quite enough of Rocky reruns (seriously, must they?), I drew up a calendar. Nothing fancy, just a sheet with a box for each month we would be here. I made the calendar in June, but included May just so I could cross off a month, proof that time, however slowly, was indeed moving forward. The calendar originally included December, 2010, but when we found out Gus would actually graduate in November, we joyfully crossed off that month as well.

And so since then, on the last day of each month, we've had a mini celebration, just the two of us standing in front of the refrigerator as one of us selects a pen and carefully crosses out the completed month. We count up the months that have passed and the ones we still have to go, sometimes twice just to be sure of our math. Someone invariably sighs, "Ugh. Thank God!" When a whole row of months is completed, a fist-bump may even be in order. Some particularly difficult months, the pen lines have all but ripped through the paper,one of us bent on exing out the past four weeks with particular fervor. Granted, for some time now we've toned down the hate and have been genuinely enjoying ourselves here, but it's still a real milestone every month to see that we're that much closer to a goal we've been working towards since 2001.

Since Gus returned from being on-call Wednesday well after midnight, we didn't cross out September until just now. We started out with thirty-one and a half months; today we're down to thirteen and a half. 13.5. I would have killed to be at almost thirteen months a year ago. I remember saying last October, "Someday, it'll be a year from now. At some point, it will be October of 2009." And sure enough, it is. Just like now I'm looking ahead to October of next year and at some point, eventually, it will arrive. We'll be packing up our place, selling off our furniture and putting the finishing touches on our life here in Pennsylvania. At thirteen months we're getting to the place where I can almost allow myself the possibility that this might all be over someday. Twelve months may be the moment where I can actually see a pinpoint at the end of the tunnel, but at thirteen if I squint my eyes and the light is just so, I imagine I can see it. That glorious world that we have talked about and thought about and bragged about and dreamed about. It is coming, I know it is!

Criss cross!