Our Vacation Home In The South Of France

Madison was a surprise. Not like 'Surprise! There's a baby jumping out of a cake!' But a surprise in the sense that I was taking the pill, and 'Surprise!' several pregnancy tests kept showing me two lines even though there was "Just no way in hell I could be pregnant."

The day I found out I was pregnant with her was a day of deep denial. A day I spent in our home working on a paper for my Organizational Comm class, while drinking water...lots of water and taking short breaks to urinate on small sticks. When I'd run out of sticks to urinate on, I'd drive to several different drugstores in town to buy several more sticks I could pee on.

I was in a denial so deep I didn't really pay attention to the double lines after a while. I just kept drinking pint glass after pint glass of water, then I'd head to the bathroom, pee on the stick and then head back to the computer to finish typing up the paper. The paper which was probably littered with lots of incoherent 'Oh My Fucking Gods' throughout the text.

Several hundred dollars later and more water than I'd ever like to drink again, my urine was as clear as the water I'd been drinking and still that God Damn pregnancy test had the fucking nerve to show me two lines.

After that rocky beginning and an even rockier post partum period, when I had Madison it was like I was supposed to have had her at this exact time in my life. Even though it didn't seem like the exact time to me while I was peeing on all those sticks. It was all much earlier than we'd planned. We'd only been married for 8 months when we found out we were growing her.

Madison had always been an idea I had, something I'd like to do 'at some point'. Like getting a Vacation Home In The South of France, only all the sudden....you just have to have that Vacation Home In The South of France immediately, ready or not! No matter how many times you pee on that stick, you'd better get your passport updated because you're getting that Vacation Home! Now!

Only for this analogy to truly work your Vacation Home In The South of France would make you fat, would give you horrible heartburn and then....just when you're about to move in, it would have to arrive via your vagina with a pair of forceps.

Your Vacation Home in the South of France would then do all sorts of crazy things to your hormones and you'd love it with all your heart but you'd sit around for a few weeks thinking, 'Why won't this beautiful house, this house I've loved since before I even saw it, let me sleep?'

You might think your Vacation Home in the South of France is broken because it cries when there isn't any reason for it to cry as far as you can see. You'll think, 'I didn't know having this Vacation Home in the South Of France was going to be so much work! I should have stuck with domestic housing! Why did I need a vacation home anyway? Other people are perfectly happy just renting an apartment and they never go to vacation homes, especially not one in the South of France.'

After a while you'll find yourself looking at your Vacation Home In The South Of France and thinking, 'My God, I give and I give and all you do is take! Don't you think you could give a little something back?'

Then, it will happen. There will be these moments where the Vacation Home In The South Of France is so full of light it almost seems like the house is smiling and it makes you wonder how you could ever have thought about renting an apartment....in the states for God's sake. Then you'll bury your nose in the neck of your Vacation Home in The South Of France and you'll think you might start crying with the smell of your sweet little, Vacation Home. You'll look at the way your Vacation Home In The South of France is constructed and you'll find yourself falling in love with that squeaky floor board, right there by the front door. And you and your husband will spend hours looking for parts of your Vacation Home that look like you and you'll think the staircase really resembles your Grandfather when you look at it just right and your husband won't see it because he'll be too busy noticing the way that banister really comes from his side of the family.

Maybe one night you'll be sitting with your husband in the yard with The Vacation House In The South Of France and you'll be watching the sunset and smelling the flowers and you'll think how this is all you ever wanted and that this was the Vacation House In The South Of France you were meant to have at exactly the time you were meant to have it and you'll wish it could always be as clear as it is in this moment.

Comments

[jenB]

oh wow. thank YOU for that.

[Rubber-Sol]

Melissa-
You should really think about getting some of your work published. More of us need to read what you write.

[no name yet]

phenomenal entry

[Angie]

What a wonderful way to think about an event as life changing as a child. Beautifully written! Enjoy the south of France!

Ang

[Coralie]

That was beautiful.

So where's the other vacation home?

[jilbur]

That's the thing I wonder, since I have only one Vacation Home in the South of France. Since you're so convinced that it's the best and most exquisite VHITSOF in existence, how does it happen that the other VHITSOF is also the absolutely most perfect heartbreakingly beautiful and perfect VHITSOF? since you have 2, I thought you might be able to explain to me how that works, so I'll be prepared when my time comes.

[Melissa]

Okay, well this seems like a whole other entry....but I'll try to make it simple.

My second Vacation Home I had to work at getting. I dreamt about it and planned for it and it was a nice and neat easy move with everything boxed up in clearly labled packaging. We knew when we wanted our second Vacation Home and we planned for it and it came exactly when we wanted (Spring of 2001).

The reason it's as perfect is that it's different. Let's say it's a Vacation Home In The Middle Of Manhattan. It's busier and more cosmopolitan than the VHITSOF, and even though at your first vacation home there's never any rushing around and there's quaint shopping in little markets, sometimes you get antsy and you want rushing. At the VHITMOM, it's busy and vibrant and there are designer bags on every street corner!

You really couldn't live without either Vacation Home once you have them, they're both different and they give you different things.

Please note, Max does not sell illegal designer handbags on street corners. Also, he's not really that cosmopolitan.

[Patti]

Damn, that's one of your best yet. HELLO?!? PUBLISHERS OUT THERE? LOOK WHAT YOU'RE MISSING!

Thanks for that.

[DANA]

Great entry Melissa! Really, really well written.

[Christie(kailey's mom)]

WOW! I would buy your book, REALLY! And Max is totally Manhattan. Log jam and all.

You rock my blog world Melissa.

[Rubber-Sol]

OMG...could the analogy have gotten any better?! Nice addition!
Will there, perhaps, be another vacation home?

[bluepoppy]

Submit this to magazines-- it's pure gold.

[Michelle]

Fabulous, Melissa. You have such an eloquent way with words! You definately need to get some of this stuff published, girlfriend!

[Sam]

I cannot think of any smart-ass thing to say. You have a gift. This is the second time you have brought a tear to my eye, but only the first time I will admit it...

You are the "mom-lit" writer I want to read.

Folks, this is good stuff. Let's find a way to make her rich from her writing!

[Jennifer]

I just found you via Monique (abrowncow.com/rightplace/) and read through some of your archives too... VERY good stuff!!! You're a link I'll be keeping.

[kelly]

Great entry! I came across your site from a friend's blog and now I read it every day.

You really should think about publishing something. I would buy it asap!

[kalisah]

wonderful...I, too, was given a Vacation Home much earlier than I'd planned to acquire one. You captured it so well.

[Lil' Sis]

Wow. Tears. Almost enough to make me reconsider my absolute refusal of the entire real estate world. ALMOST. I think I will just continue vacationing with YOUR homes. I don't like cleaning.

-miao.
P.S.(have you read any of the books from xmas yet? you've got a helluva portfolio.)

[Michelle]

That was so sweet! It was funny AND it brought tears to my eyes! Good writing.