The Latest

It's late October.

I have 20 minutes before I need to start getting the kids up for school.

Gary and I started looking for places last week doing drive-by's.

The boys are excited about this, stating their preferences of where they want us to look. Connor wants a place he can skate and walk to skateboard shops. Scott's hoping we'll have cable TV.

We found a place on Saturday that's midway between our house and Connor's school. About 3 miles away. It's a daylight basement in a house on 3 acres of spectacularly gardened property. As we spoke with the man who was showing it, I learned his wife is a published author.

She'd be an interesting person to live next to. Or below, I guess.

Though the apartment is quite nice, it's also quite small. I'm not sure I wouldn't feel claustrophobic.

Yesterday I'd put together an itinerary of about 10 properties to look at; we started north and worked our way south. The last one on our list had a sign out that said the leasing office was open so we parked in their lot and went to have a look-see.

There's no denying the location is superb. It's located a block or two from Washington Park, and straddles the Northwest 23rd district and downtown. It's a high-rise with unobstructed views of Portland to the north. She took us to an apartment that approximates the ones that will come available, but are still occupied and couldn't be shown. As we got off the elevator, a man asked us if we were looking at places and said, "It's great living here!" We walked in to the view, and a spectacularly clear rainbow that spanned the city. She took us to the rooftop, 24th floor which is open and appointed with tables, a sink, and barbeque.

Granted, the place she showed us may have given us an unrealistically positive impression, because it was a double studio. To get the accurate feel we had to imagine a wall running through the middle of it and halving the living area we were standing in. It is also on the 21st floor. Maybe the actual flat that's available wouldn't give such a positive impression. Parking in this neighborhood is cheek-by-jowl, though for an extra $100/mo there is outside assigned parking in their lot. For $135 we can park inside the garage.

I can't help but wistfully think about what we could do with our house with a thousand + a month. If nothing else we could be saving a great nest egg for retirement; putting away sufficient money for the boys' college, landscaping our own property...

But I've just spent the past 5 years examining and re-examining the life he and I create together and concluding that it's not acceptable. And it's not going to change.

Separation is the logical outcome of the life we've been living. We haven't been living a life that supports any alternative to separation, that would support us in a partnership of raising our kids, improving our property together, saving for our future. We could still do it, but it would be at odds with the life we're living--a horse's mask on a pig's body. To live true to the life we've been living, we need to follow it's trajectory, which leads to spending over a thousand dollars a month to support a separate residence. That's all there is to it, and I should quit looking back.

Maybe that's what turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. Looking back immobilized her.