Finished
It's a day of completions, at least it's supposed to be. Today is the last day we'll have the original space that held the Teacup, so I'm off to do those "clean out the fridge, sweep the floor, check under the bed" things one does when one is leaving an old home.
It's been an interesting emotional transition to leave a place that felt as much like home as my actual house. In the 3 months since we moved the new space has gone from feeling unwelcoming to me, like an oddly fitting new suit that I wasn't even sure I wanted to wear, to being the center of a whirlwind I live in every day, and is rapidly becoming that favorite pair of lived in blue jeans. If your blue jeans could hold 3 times as many people and still had boxes on the floor everywhere. In the same time, the old store has gone from something it was heartbreaking to leave, to an empty shell left behind after the butterfly takes flight.
I stood at the old counter yesterday as I had probably nearly a million times before and looked out our little windows to the street. It felt... small and hidden. I realized that it was probably the last time I was ever going to stand there and look that way, and felt a little sad, and more than a little sense of nostalgia, like I was losing a vista due to some sort of natural calamity. Standing there was something I'd done since the first day I owned the shop was something I was never going to do again, and I let myself stand there and feel the place I had worked so hard for and in for the last time. I wonder if this is how it feels to have a child leave home... deeply sad but also like it's intrinsically right. Thankfully Z walked up and snapped me out of my fugue, and I finished packing the box that was in front of me.
I walked back into the new store with the box of bits and bobs, and it was screaming busy, a bit of a shock to the senses after the tomb like quality the old store is now. Nearly every table was full, the early afternoon sunshine streamed in the windows all around us, and the two walls of glass made it feel like we were open to the world. The masses of people were happy and laughing, and in the center of the chaos a little girl played on the ramp by swinging on the handrail with a tea timer in her other hand, singing to herself. Nothing seemed too big and the sense of a place full of life and energy was palpable. Then I walked back for another box and the sense of emptiness in the old store was just as palpable. I think for the first time my heart realized what my head had already known for more than a year. This was the right move, and the Teacup only has more growing to do, and just a little sadly, you can never go back. It's the end of one thing, and the beginning of another.
I turn the keys over tomorrow.
The other ending, I'm a bit ashamed to admit. See, about 10 days ago I was looking for something to read, and apparently at least a year ago I bought the first Book in the Twilight Series long before I even knew anything about the while movie thing. I probably bought it because the UW Bookstore genre fiction department recommended it. Hands down they are the best in the city, and almost always right, and where I get the vast majority of my books. Anyhoo, I made the mistake of picking it up and giving it a try early last week when I was feeling under the weather, snearing at myself the whole time about reading a "kid's book", and a horror one at that.
Well, the sneering didn't stop, but here, 10 days later and 2000+ pages later, I have finished all 4 books of the series, feeling more than a little ashamed of myself. I have two opposing but simultaneous opinions of it. First, that it's like Days of our Lives, only at night and dead. I don't know anybody that thinks that living in the head of a teenager is a good idea, or fun, but it is full of drama, that's for sure. Second, it was so compelling that I literally couldn't put it down, and felt like it was some sort of drug I had to keep ingesting until every morsel was gone from the planet. I made the guys physically take them from me at night so I could sleep, and I was so clearly obsessed they didn't even ask why. I can't remember anything in the last decade that I read that held me so enthralled. You have to give the author massive credit, she held me in her little hands from the first to the last, even when I very much didn't want her to.
I suppose, I recommend the series, but be prepared, you won't be able to stop after the first one. The second one is so hard core teenager you'll want to be absolutely certain you are current on your depression meds before you start it. The third one is much better, and the fourth one comes to a very emotionally satisfying conclusion (which I reached at 1am this morning.... like i said, you can't put them down.)
Now it's time to go and get L up so we can meet Z at the old store and get this done. No rest for the wicked, I guess.
It's been an interesting emotional transition to leave a place that felt as much like home as my actual house. In the 3 months since we moved the new space has gone from feeling unwelcoming to me, like an oddly fitting new suit that I wasn't even sure I wanted to wear, to being the center of a whirlwind I live in every day, and is rapidly becoming that favorite pair of lived in blue jeans. If your blue jeans could hold 3 times as many people and still had boxes on the floor everywhere. In the same time, the old store has gone from something it was heartbreaking to leave, to an empty shell left behind after the butterfly takes flight.
I stood at the old counter yesterday as I had probably nearly a million times before and looked out our little windows to the street. It felt... small and hidden. I realized that it was probably the last time I was ever going to stand there and look that way, and felt a little sad, and more than a little sense of nostalgia, like I was losing a vista due to some sort of natural calamity. Standing there was something I'd done since the first day I owned the shop was something I was never going to do again, and I let myself stand there and feel the place I had worked so hard for and in for the last time. I wonder if this is how it feels to have a child leave home... deeply sad but also like it's intrinsically right. Thankfully Z walked up and snapped me out of my fugue, and I finished packing the box that was in front of me.
I walked back into the new store with the box of bits and bobs, and it was screaming busy, a bit of a shock to the senses after the tomb like quality the old store is now. Nearly every table was full, the early afternoon sunshine streamed in the windows all around us, and the two walls of glass made it feel like we were open to the world. The masses of people were happy and laughing, and in the center of the chaos a little girl played on the ramp by swinging on the handrail with a tea timer in her other hand, singing to herself. Nothing seemed too big and the sense of a place full of life and energy was palpable. Then I walked back for another box and the sense of emptiness in the old store was just as palpable. I think for the first time my heart realized what my head had already known for more than a year. This was the right move, and the Teacup only has more growing to do, and just a little sadly, you can never go back. It's the end of one thing, and the beginning of another.
I turn the keys over tomorrow.
The other ending, I'm a bit ashamed to admit. See, about 10 days ago I was looking for something to read, and apparently at least a year ago I bought the first Book in the Twilight Series long before I even knew anything about the while movie thing. I probably bought it because the UW Bookstore genre fiction department recommended it. Hands down they are the best in the city, and almost always right, and where I get the vast majority of my books. Anyhoo, I made the mistake of picking it up and giving it a try early last week when I was feeling under the weather, snearing at myself the whole time about reading a "kid's book", and a horror one at that.
Well, the sneering didn't stop, but here, 10 days later and 2000+ pages later, I have finished all 4 books of the series, feeling more than a little ashamed of myself. I have two opposing but simultaneous opinions of it. First, that it's like Days of our Lives, only at night and dead. I don't know anybody that thinks that living in the head of a teenager is a good idea, or fun, but it is full of drama, that's for sure. Second, it was so compelling that I literally couldn't put it down, and felt like it was some sort of drug I had to keep ingesting until every morsel was gone from the planet. I made the guys physically take them from me at night so I could sleep, and I was so clearly obsessed they didn't even ask why. I can't remember anything in the last decade that I read that held me so enthralled. You have to give the author massive credit, she held me in her little hands from the first to the last, even when I very much didn't want her to.
I suppose, I recommend the series, but be prepared, you won't be able to stop after the first one. The second one is so hard core teenager you'll want to be absolutely certain you are current on your depression meds before you start it. The third one is much better, and the fourth one comes to a very emotionally satisfying conclusion (which I reached at 1am this morning.... like i said, you can't put them down.)
Now it's time to go and get L up so we can meet Z at the old store and get this done. No rest for the wicked, I guess.