It's official

I am now an Oregonian. I got my new license today. I failed the test on Wednesday and studied my brains out over the last couple days; today I passed like a rock star!

And that officially wraps up every last thing I needed to do after the move. I have insurance, registered the cars, changed utilities over, and am now licensed to drive here. It feels good to have everything taken care of; I felt like I was in a real state of limbo for the past couple weeks, on my way to something else but not quite there. I was talking to a friend recently about "home", and I made the statement that I have never really felt at home anywhere I've ever lived, that I always felt like I was in an in-between place. After thinking about it, I realize that's not entirely true, that my last house did feel like a comfortable home-place; but it's true that for most of my adult life I haven't really felt very settled. Colin and I always talked about leaving the NW, and living somewhere else. We never settled on another place but we both felt a pretty strong need to get out of this area. The places he and I lived together felt very impermanent up until the last place; we had a small apartment very close to the office we both worked in. It was across the street from a market and an excellent Thai restaurant called Bangkok Palace. In fact, that apartment was located right in the centre of just about everything a person could need to be happy and feel connected to life (except a strip club, of course). Jeff lived in the same building as us, so we even had one of our best friends nearby. That was probably the place I lived that I felt most comfortable, most at home; it was the place I lived in when Colin died, so as wonderful as it was at the time, my memories of it are tainted by the image of his body there.

This apartment I'm in now feels like that other apartment, warm and comfortable, without the dead body. It feels peaceful and safe and relaxing. Once again I'm across the street from a market, and very near to my office, and again right in the middle of all the things that make life convenient -except for a strip club, dammit.