Luke has not visited yet, but he called last week to ask if he could come for a weekend sometime in the next few months. I said yes. I am looking forward to showing him the place, which is a kind of showing-off I permit myself — not of money or achievement exactly, but of the specific thing I worked toward and got to, eventually, even when the timeline was not what I had planned.
My mother has not been here. She has asked about the apartment — in her texts, in the brief calls we have had, she has asked if it is comfortable, if I like the neighborhood, if I am settled. I have told her it is good. That is true. It is good. I am not ready to invite her here yet, and I don’t know when I will be, and I am trying to be honest with myself about that rather than planning toward a visit that I’m not sure I want to have.
This apartment will be the first place she sees, when she finally does see it. Not the old one, which she visited a few times. This one. The one I moved into during and after the dispute. The one that was nearly derailed by a loan in my name that I did not take out.
I don’t know what I’ll feel when she is here. I’m leaving room for the uncertainty. There is a version of it that is okay, and I am trying to move toward that version without forcing it.