My 22 year old niece is moving in with us, the closer we get, the more I realize how much fun this will be.

My Sister’s daughter is moving to Florida to start her life in a few weeks at the tender young age of 22. Since she was 12 years old and visited us, she has wanted to move here and stay with Bride and I. I can hardly blame her, I did not like Ohio and having to deal with the winters there sucks, for those who are there ya know – whether you admit it or not winters sucks. I left an agonizingly small town in Ohio (Millerstown) in 1983 and using the US Navy I traveled to just about every corner of the world, I have seen everything from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and his marble masterpiece David. I have stood in the valley of the Kings and marveled at the pyramids, traveled the Suez and Panama Canals. I have stood in the coliseum of Rome and toured the Blue Mosque in Istanbul Turkey, I also know that Istanbul was previously Constantinople and before that it was a started as a Greek outpost called Byzantium, which was later the head of the Byzantine empire. I have toured London, Paris, Berlin, Switzerland and spent a week in Rio de Janeiro and wound up with my first tattoo after touring to the top of Corcovado Mountain to see the massive Christ the Redeemer statue looking down on me. I have seen things that I would have never had the opportunity to see had I stayed in Ohio. The one thing I had was the military, when I left I knew I would have someone looking after me, I was not really striking out on my own.

I cannot imagine the apprehension and fear I would have felt if I were just moving to Florida when I graduated high school. It would be starting from scratch and I know a lot of people do that all the time but when I was younger I did not have the confidence in myself that I now have. It would have been very difficult for me, and then if I were to stick around and wait a couple of years it would have been impossible for me to leave at the age of 22. My Niece seems not the least bit worried, maybe because she will be staying with us for a while, until she gets settled and can get her own place, that probably revolves around her being able to sell her condo in Ohio. She is very excited, we talk about once a week and email a couple of times a week and see each other’s lives scrolling by daily on Face book. I do have to mention, I did not say anything about texting, one of my life goals is to never text to anyone, not because I do not know how or can’t it is because I chose not to know how, the gadgets are NOT going to take over my life. Originally she was planning on coming around August, but I found that once it sank in that she was actually doing it she wanted to come sooner. Lots of plans – I asked lots of questions, how much stuff ya got, ever driven a U-haul, I found it a lot of fun remembering my youthful exploits all over the world.

The original plan had me flying up to help her pack and drive the U-haul truck back with her car in tow. I am not sure how but those plans shifted and somehow (luckily for me) those duties fell to my brother in law. Not that I would have minded at all but, the thought of driving a U-haul pulling a car from Ohio to Florida is not something I would do just for fun. Right now the plans are again a bit hazy and I found out late last week that a friend of hers lost her mother so there will be a quick trip to California before the trip to Florida. She tells me that she recently dyed her hair purple, her favorite color, although when I asked for photographic evidence none was forth coming so I am not sure she actually did it. I did however think it was cool because our guest bedroom is painted purple, with some faux work created with sponges, wads of tin foil and newspaper. For us, like many I suppose, our guest room is for overnight guests, which we just do not have that often. So aside from a bed, nightstands, lamps and a dresser there is a file cabinet and the closet is more of a storage room than an actual usable closet. Long ago the shelf and the hanging bar were removed and in their places, more shelves to hold all our junk. Some of the boxes I found in there when clearing it out have not been touched since we moved into this house, almost 10 years ago. I am not sure whether to open them or throw them directly in the trash – if I have not needed it for 10 years how important can this stuff be right?

So to find new area’s to store this stuff coming out of that room it has forced me to deep clean and purge some other area’s of our home. Our office for example, it is not big, 12x14 but it is densely packed, shelves down one wall, desk in there, other ancillary stuff, old stereo equipment, a couple of still working televisions and a few computers. It is pretty full but now I have to find some additional room in there to store stuff coming from the other closet. I was also looking through the garage for some space to place her or our items. It has actually been very good, we like to purge every now and again and my niece coming has forced us to purge once again. I am sometimes amazed how much crap we have accumulated over the last 20+ years that we have been hanging out, Bride and me that is. Not long ago we also had our skylight in the guest bathroom start leaking, once that was removed and I had patched the ceiling we decided to upgrade that room a bit. We had not done anything to it since we moved in. So off came the popcorn ceiling and all the old moldings and the door and in came new swirl textured ceiling along with new 6 inch base board and with the addition of crown molding and a paint job that room was ready, we were doing that before I even knew she was coming but the timing seemed fated.

After dealing with all the details that will accommodate her staying with us, I am finding myself getting very excited to see her. Between Bride and me, we have a great number of nieces and nephews, close to 20 but since we chose to live about 1000 miles from Ohio and about 1000 miles from Texas I have never had the opportunity to get to really know any of them. Don’t get me wrong, I know them all the best I can from 1000 miles away and only seeing them once or twice a year and sometimes longer. We do not have kids so we do not know many 22 year olds and I am looking forward to getting to know my niece on a whole new level. I have a lot of nieces and nephews who have their ducks in a row but this niece seems unique to me, ducks in a row and still rebellious – purple hair and “Pink Floyd” tattooed inside of her lip. How cool is that! I remember when she got it my sister called and was ranting – pissed off I would say, and I think she was looking for me to join her in her righteous indignation about her daughters getting a tattoo but being a tattooed one myself I really thought it was cool. I myself am a huge Pink Floyd fan as well. Bride and I both are looking forward to her getting here, we have been talking about the impact on us as well, when two people have lived together for over 20 years without anyone else there is a certain amount of apprehension about what habits you will have to change. No more skinny dipping after dark, no more drinking OJ from the jug and having to close our bedroom door when we go to bed, what will the dog and the cat do? Who knows, there will be adjustments for both of us I am sure but if we are never forced to change our habits we can get stuck in a rut so I think it is all good.

We can’t wait until she arrives!