The Irony Of It All

Andrew and I decided to go to Oklahoma over Easter.

Since Andrew and I both get Good Friday off, that is the only three-day weekend between now and Memorial Day, and Andrew said it made no sense to go on any other weekend. If we were to go to Oklahoma on a regular weekend, we would have little more than a day to spend with my family, given all the traveling involved.

It is not especially convenient to travel between the Twin Cities and Oklahoma City. There is only one non-stop flight each day between MSP and Oklahoma City. Travelers have the choice of that single non-stop flight, or routing themselves through Chicago, Dallas or Denver, turning a 90-minute journey into a day-long excursion.

Since Andrew’s brothers will be coming home for Easter, I hate to drag Andrew away from his family. I dragged Andrew away from his family at Christmas, and I will be dragging him away from his family again at Easter.

Andrew says he doesn’t mind.

There are so many changes coming up, almost too many changes, that I cannot digest them all.

In July, Andrew’s middle brother will move back to Minneapolis from Denver.

In August, Andrew and I will move to Boston.

In September, my sister will move to Nashville, Tennessee.

In November or December, Andrew’s older brother and his family plan to begin preparing for a move to Minneapolis from New York.

The only ones not moving or planning to move, it seems, are Andrew’s parents—and that’s because, according to Andrew, their dog will not permit them to move. Otherwise, Andrew jokes, his parents would have placed a “For Sale” sign on their front lawn in the summer of 2006—as soon as Andrew and I graduated and moved to Minneapolis—and moved to an undisclosed location, just so that they could achieve some peace and quiet, far away from Andrew and me.

Of course, Andrew and I are moving to Boston because of law school. Without going into all the factors behind the decision, everyone—my father, my mother, Andrew’s father, Andrew’s mother, Andrew—always asserted that I must go to the best law school possible, irrespective of location.

Myself, I would actually be happy attending law school here in Minneapolis—there are four law schools in the Twin Cities—because I plan to spend my life in Minneapolis. Given that, I am not so intent upon attending a “prestige” institution, but everyone else has convinced me that I should attend the best law school that will admit me. I have grown to accept that argument, although I do not believe that either Andrew or I will be happy in Boston. We will be happy, being together in Boston, but we will not be happy in Boston.

I hate to take Andrew away from his family. Andrew spent seven years on the Eastern Seaboard, away from his family, during his undergraduate years and during law school. After law school, Andrew never thought he would have to be away from his family ever again.

Now I will be taking Andrew away from his family again, and at the very time that his brothers begin to return home.

Sometimes it is ironic how things turn out.

My sister is moving to Nashville to enroll at university.

Andrew’s middle brother never planned to spend his life in Denver. Denver was never “home” to him. For him, Denver was just a place to park for a few years. He has decided that Denver is not a suitable city in which to spend too long a time, let alone a lifetime, and he is ready to move back to his hometown.

He received an employment offer in the Twin Cities, and he has accepted the offer, effective the first week of September. He plans to leave Denver around July 1. He will be taking two months off between jobs (and he wants to use part of this time to travel, and he wants Andrew and me to join him).

He will keep his condominium in Denver, because the real estate market in Denver is exceptionally weak, one of the two or three weakest markets in the country, according to Federal Reserve Board surveys of economic activity. He does not plan to rent out his condominium, both because he does not want anyone else living there and because he does not want to be a long-distance landlord. He is going to keep his condo, and use it once or twice a year for skiing vacations until the real estate market rebounds.

Andrew’s brother will stay with his parents from July 1 until such time as Andrew and I move to Boston, at which point he will move into our current apartment. This is perfectly fine with our landlady. In fact, she is delighted. She knows him—she taught at the boys’ school both he and Andrew attended—and she is delighted to continue to have a tenant, and a tenant she knows and likes.

Andrew’s older brother wants to be settled in Minneapolis before his son begins school. Although that is two to three years in the future, he and his wife are ready to leave New York sooner than that.

They are ready for many reasons: the real estate market in New York is still robust, and they will have no trouble selling their coop; the quality of life in New York is not what it is in Minneapolis, and this is beginning to wear on Andrew’s sister-in-law; they want to have another child, and this will be easier in Minneapolis than New York, what with other family members available here to lend a hand; and the international situation is likely to deteriorate in coming years, leaving New York more and more vulnerable.

So a lot of things are in the works.

The last several months have been exhausting for me, because I have had to make several difficult, even painful, decisions.

I am relieved that the decisions have been made, but I am not 100% certain that the decisions have been the best decisions. I think that they are, but one never knows, ultimately.

One thing I do know: Andrew and I have three years of hard time coming up in Boston. We’ll get through those three years the best we can.

Until last night, when I decided, on a whim, that I wanted to go visit my family in Oklahoma, Andrew and I had planned to spend a weekend in Boston, familiarizing ourselves with the city. We were thinking of going next weekend, or the following weekend, to scope out the town. Now that we will be going to Oklahoma for Easter, however, I think Andrew and I have tabled our tentative plans to spend a weekend in Boston. We shall stay in town until Easter weekend.

Our landlady decided tonight that she and Andrew and I all need a “theater day”. She is a devoted patron of theater, and she sees literally every single theater production in the Twin Cities. For her, a “theater day” is a day devoted to a matinee performance and an evening performance. It’s too bad there are no morning performances, because she would fit one of those in, too.

Accordingly, on Saturday, we three will be having a “theater day”. On Saturday afternoon, we will go to Bloomington to see a performance of “The Fantasticks” at Bloomington Civic Theater. On Saturday evening, we will go downtown to see a performance of Shakespeare’s “Henry V” at Theater In The Round.

It should be fun.