Last Night

At 9:40 PM this evening, the Ravishing Mrs. TB comments to me "You know, the first night we moved into this house, you spent the night here alone; now the last night we're here, you are again spending the night here alone."

In a way, that kind of sums up this entire weekend: a whirlwind tour of endings being the same as beginnings.

Our house was packed up into a van in about six hours; in a moment of almost sheer absurdity, the driver asked me to value our possessions (for insurance purposes). I almost laughed out loud: my physical belongings are reduced to a number on a sheet of paper and sum which I pull out my head with no real meaning (how does one place a value on sentiment?).

I was commenting to Uisdean Ruadh on Sunday night that in a way, this represented yet another slow falling away of The Firm (we used the commission on the house as part of the down payment) - the course that was set 5 years ago coming to it's tired conclusion, like Magellen's last circumnavigating ship limping home to Spain - without Magellan. "I failed" I told Uisdean Ruadh. "I failed to hold things together. I should have been able to keep the house."

"You haven't failed" he replied. "You did your best. No-one can dispute that. Sometimes things don't work out."

Sometimes things don't work out - or sometimes they're in God's hands. Either way, it leaves one feeling powerless and somewhat failed.

So I sit here tonight in a house devoid of everything, kept company by a dog, a rabbit, and a cat. The house is not the same as when we moved in: the walls are painted but scuffed, the backyard is landscaped but overgrown, the interior echoing not with laughter or voices but with silence.

But the biggest difference between when I moved in and tonight is that the house echoes with memories tonight: dogs, cats and rabbits run through it, family parties and friends over for dinner, the sound of daughters laughing and crying and arguing and praying.

The difference, I suppose, is that unlike painted walls, memories are things you can take with you. Sometimes, as Uisdean Ruadh says, things don't work out, but you do your best.