This weird spot has me in a weird spot. I’ve always had an odd relationship with this lake house. When I first met my future ex-in-laws (wait, I’m not sure if that’s technically true because they both passed before we got divorced so I think they might just be my in-laws… that’s going to require more thought) this place came with a heaping side order of anxiety.
Then once I was a part of the family it kind of shifted into a place of obligation that morphed into comfort and even fun. After my mother-in-law died it turned into a sad place as it was just tough to be up here. That slowly turned around as we started having kids but once grandpa got a girlfriend shit went back to strange.
Then the place got torn down and rebuilt which changed the vibe once again. There were a couple years where we didn’t get up much mostly due to the aforementioned girlfriend being a bit weird. Not all her fault, my then wife and she never quite clicked and I probably didn’t help the situation by noticing every one of the mounting pile of odd behaviors. I wish I felt good about writing some of that shit down but it’s not fair.
Anyway, the girlfriend then passed away and it got dark for a minute but then he started to interact with the family more. This place was great. Her dad loved having the kids and friends up and once again it was a good place. But then her dad died and it got dark all over again. We inherited the house which on the surface seems like a great thing but early on it was tough for my ex to be up here at all.
In an effort to justify maintaining and extra home that didn’t get used I invited all of my friends up for a guys weekend. This turned out to be one of my better lifetime decisions. 15-20 grown men acting like teenagers with adult money. It’s a tradition we carry on every year to this day but the location has changed.
I started writing this when I first got here as I was overwhelmed with an odd feeling. Then I decided to give it a couple days. If anyone can wipe the bad away it’s my core family. They made me forget because they rule and my time with them is always gold but I have come to the conclusion that I’m not coming back.
The family headed further north to stay at another house and play with some water toys while I remained behind. I did some work this afternoon while cleaning up in an effort to make things easier for the ex because she was nice enough to let us rent it from her. I’m going to sleep here one last time and tomorrow morning early I’ll be saying goodbye to a place I once loved.
