2016 has struck again. I tried not to get too wrapped up in the first few celebrity deaths this year, even though they were heartbreakers. It's hard to keep ignoring it as they just pile on week after week. Today's loss to the musical world wasn't the biggest. He wasn't even one of my favorites. I enjoyed grooving to Dead or Alive's music in my non-dancer sort of way, but I never pinned my hopes and dreams on that band. But to see that Pete Burns died at the very young age of 57 made me feel mortal in an uncomfortable way. I am mostly okay with the idea that I might have been wrong last year when I boasted that my mid 40s represented middle age in that I felt I was only halfway done, and had every intention of hitting 90. Now that I've gotten all the diagnoses that I have to date, with more on the way, I'm figuring 70 might be overly ambitious, and 60 could qualify as beating the odds. But when I heard about the singer who died today, I decided 57 felt like leaving with unfinished business. I'm a good patient now. I take all my medications, and I go to the doctor when things don't seem right (which is a relative assessment, considering how much lupus actually hurts on a daily basis). I'll do my best to stick around until my business is concluded here, but it might not be entirely up to me.
I took another giant step or two towards the goal of turning my forever house into the home it needs to be. I cleared out a few more bits of construction debris, and made sure that my guest spaces were ready to receive actual guests. It was just in time to have those very real guests show up. I'm trying to remember whether non-family or non-renter guests have stayed here before. I can't remember anyone outside the family who came in for just a couple nights. (No offense to someone if I have just blanked on their visit.) Today I have old friends who have come to attend a concert with me, and I managed to get the house to where I feel proud to have company in my space, not embarrassed by the last several piles of papers and junk (which, to be fair, are dwindling). My friends know the struggles I've had, and would understand if I hadn't gotten this far. But I've long felt like cleaning up for company is a sign of respect, something I didn't fully get when I was younger and first running my own household. And I have nothing but love and respect for these friends. We've known each other for 16 years, through a love of the same band. We share a devotion to the band Marillion, and have traveled to see them around the country on multiple occasions. I first met one of these friends at a Fish show in Atlanta (Fish being the original lead singer of Marillion from the 1980s). Our families got to know each other well at gatherings in Oklahoma City and Omaha, and our circle of friends all flew in to see the band in its current lineup in Boulder twelve years ago. By this point, these friends really are family. We even have been playing in the same fantasy football league together for more than a decade. We used to call our big gatherings "Garden Parties," and I have been dreaming of hosting one in Colorado for the last ten years, just as soon as I could move back here and settle into a house. I am officially putting the whole crew on notice that a Rocky Mountain Garden Party is going to happen, and soon. Life is short and friends are precious. RMGP2017 will happen, folks.
My daughter is starting to dream a little more seriously about home ownership. She has been crammed in the tiny condo we bought for her to live in while she was in college, and she and her crew have outgrown it. Today I took her on her very first showing. The house itself might be a bit above her price range, and we won't know for certain where her budget will land until she meets with the mortgage lender I steered her to. It's a big house, large enough for her best friend to rent rooms from her and share living expenses. She thought it was very cool, with its mix of quirky, vintage 1960s charm and updated bits and pieces. (It even has the exact same sea foam green sink and tub that I have.) But the best part is that it is about four blocks away from her mommy's house. It would be one more way to make my own house feel like a forever home, to have family in the extended neighborhood. It might just be a dream at this point, but it's a nice dream to have. Family within walking distance would rock.
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