A Short Story - I am Jo March, Sort Of

I imagine I’m like Jo March in Little Women. Leaving my beloved family and setting out on an adventure in the big city to clear my head. There are a few major differences. Jo March didn’t go too far. She started in Concord and landed in Boston and eventually moved to a house in the same neighborhood as her parents. Jo was single, she met a professor in Boston and fell in love. I met my husband in Portland and came here for his job. Jo moved to the big city and although we are in close proximity to several big cities, we are living in the smallest town I’ve ever seen. There are a million other slight differences…I live in the twenty first century, we drove across the country in a Penske truck towing a mini van, I only have one sister and thank goodness she’s not sick and the biggest difference, I suppose, is that Jo took her trip out of courage and the desire for change. I’ve always feared change more than anything.

I go through my day humming the theme from the 1990’s Little Women remake in my head. There are no words (thank goodness) and the tune is neither happy nor sad, simply a tribute to quaint living and the warm love of family and friends.

In reality, I suppose I am not in the most romantic of scenarios. I am experiencing day three of being cooped up in a hotel room in Albany, NY while my husband trains for his new position. At first, I was relieved. For most of my adult life, my secret fantasy has been to break away somewhere and spend an entire day in a hotel room sleeping with no phone calls, no work and no responsibility. It was fun- great even- for the first few hours, but after the Lifetime Movie Network started replaying the same movies and I’d seen every episode of Melrose Place, I got tired of being here.

Jo had something to do. She had kids to govern and a professor to go to the opera with. Granted, I have my own professor, who’s better looking than the one in the 1990s remake. But there are no operas in this neighborhood and I can’t seem to find a job to save my life.

Did I mention, I couldn’t look like Wynona Rider to save my life? For that matter, I couldn’t look like Katherine Hepburn either…although I’d rather look like Wynona as long as I’m imagining things.

Yesterday I took a sleeping pill in the middle of the day. I don’t think Jo March would have done that.

I just need to make it through today and tomorrow and then we’ll be back in Great Barrington where we will be living into the unforeseen future. The house we will be moving into will not be available for three more weeks. Luckily, our new landlord is being very generous and allowing us to stay in another property he owns, free of charge! His kindness could not have come at a better time.

The first night we arrived into town, we were greeted by Charlie’s parents. They drove for hours just to welcome us and I truly appreciated the gesture. Unfortunately, we had lined up a place to live online, we had gone to see it before we went to see them and were horribly disappointed with both the cost and the square footage. I suppose if I had wanted a true Little Women experience, we should have taken the apartment. It seemed to be from the right time period and the Marches lived in poverty…although I think, upon further reflection, this must have been more like the Hummel’s house. So it was with heavy hearts that we greeted the Deitzes and they accompanied us to another property which was equally a, would Jo say, “S*** box?”

I tried to put on a brave face for my in-laws and my husband. By now the brass and the strings of the Little Women theme was blasting at full volume in my head. A wave of homesickness swept over me as I felt the small parameters of the town close in all around me. I excused myself to my hotel room for a “Nap” and called my parent’s house. I talked for a while to my dad, which even writing about now brings tears to my eyes. He said all was well at home and that he loved me, then I talked to my mom who has always had an ability to detect tears even from long distance phone calls. I claimed allergies which probably didn’t throw her off at all, but she went along with it anyway. I got off the phone determined to make this new life work. I went out to the hotel pool where my mother in law was sitting and reading. I chattered about absolutely nothing for almost an hour. Diane has the patience of a saint, I’m sure I was nowhere near making sense.

When we retired for the evening, I locked myself into the bathroom when I thought Charlie was not looking and sobbed. A good long cry. I remember my mom saying that you can set aside feelings of sadness and worry for a set time and it allows you to function during the rest of your day. I decided I would give my self 10 minutes to freak out. And freak out I did. I contemplated trying to convince Charlie to fly home, I asked God to help us find something better- some comfort in this new situation. I thought about taking all of my migraine medicine at once- I dismissed that one fast- this was Little Women, not Madame Bovary!

I came out of the bathroom and Charlie was waiting for me looking horribly apologetic. Did I really think he wouldn’t hear me sobbing and taking big heavy breathes, I might as well have been shouting, “WHY ME?” at the top of my lungs. I couldn’t help but laugh a little bit. Seeing Charlie in that moment brought me back around. I needed to stop trying to find a way around these changes and start accepting that this was our life right now. He needed me. I had been strong back home, I promised him I would support his career choices no matter where they took us. I was happy for him and proud of him and doing a terrible job of convincing him.

I woke up the next morning with amazingly puffy eyes. I put on an abundance of under eye concealer not wanting my in-laws to pick up on my difficult evening. We faced the new day not knowing what we would find, but with hope. Our first challenge was finding a place to store our Penske truck while we went to Albany for Charlie’s training. Problem solved. The people who owned the truck rental company said we could keep the truck there free of charge. After spending most of the morning on the phone with various real estate agents, one of them referred us to Jim. Jim is the owner of the house we will be moving into in the next few weeks. Finally, we had to find a place to board our two cats. (Who, by the way, hated us for this trip- it seems they fear change too.) At first, we plotted to try to sneak them into the hotel in Albany inside of our suitcases, but when it came down to it, the idea seemed less than reasonable. On a lark, on our way out of town, we tried the vet/pet boarding and grooming place next to the house we would be renting. The girl at the counter said she couldn’t take the cats without vaccine paperwork. The cats had been vaccinated, but the proof was laying in a box in the back of our Penske truck. The girl at the front counter took our word for it. Not only that, but she put the cats in their own little playroom where they could act up and scratch everything they saw. Within 24 hours all of our worries had been taken care of, maybe God heard my sad ramblings in the bathroom and put some good people in our way. I feel a little like a spoiled child who threw a temper tantrum but who’s parents humored her anyway. Maybe I’m more like Amy March than Jo.

People in our new town seem to do business based on their word. It’s old fashioned, but refreshing. More than that, living in a small town is teaching me to follow through on things. I had applied for a job and as it turned out it wasn’t going to pay enough. In Portland, I would have blown off the next interview and not called back. You can’t do that in a small town, the chances of my running into the woman who interviewed me are very high. I called her back and said I couldn’t proceed in the interview process. To my alarm, when I got off the phone I was sweating buckets! Maybe this move will cure me of some old bad habbits.

My feelings seem to come and go quickly. This morning a leak in our hotel room sink meant that someone was going to have to come up to the room and work on it while Charlie was away. This area of town is-would Jo say, “Ghetto?” so I didn’t have anywhere to go and I’m very nervous around strangers. I pouted a lot this morning about that, but it turned out okay.

Jo March is my favorite literary character. I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. My middle name is Jo for Jo in the story. She’s spunky and brave and vulnerable and creative. I’m hoping that by facing my fear of change, I will take on more of these characteristics. We both live in Massachusetts now.