It was the following week (after the break in) when we arrived home to find a note on our front door. The note was from the construction company doing roadwork on our street. We knew months in advance that the street we lived on was going to be upgraded. In addition to repaving the entire road, a lane was to be added and new sidewalks were going to be poured. We knew that for a portion of this time we would not have access to our driveway. The entire project was supposed to be completed in September.
This first week in November the project reached its half-way point. That was the point in which we would lose access to our driveway. The note on our door asked us to remove all cars from our driveway by 8 am the following day. It also included an updated timeline for the remainder of the roadwork. We were to have a brand new completed road by the end of November.
As we left our house on the way to work the following morning, we passed road workers setting up cones. By the time we returned that evening, the top layer of pavement had been removed and the old brick street was left exposed. The brick street was torn up and dirt was exposed the following day.
With a nearly two-foot-deep trench in front of our yard, work seemed to halt. Warm, sunny days passed with no changes to our street. Then it began to rain. The trench became a moat. Getting from our house to our car took at least ten minutes and usually two pairs of shoes. With sidewalks torn up, it was impossible to avoid the mud. We began buying small amounts of groceries that we could carry in one trip, and planned our days to get all of our errands completed at once.
Even though the city's revised work schedule showed completion at the end of the month, I never let myself believe it was possible. I was shooting for driveway access by the beginning of 2011, and left to celebrate the holidays hopeful that Santa would bring me a new driveway.
2011 began with no driveway. Johnie and I planned for when we would get it back. We had been considering the purchase of new furniture for more than a year and decided that making the purchase while having a mud pit in front of our house might possibly spur some road good will for us. The furniture store delayed our delivery for weeks as we waited. But then we could wait no longer, and we scheduled - and received - our furniture delivery before our driveway completion.
After four months of living with constant mud-caked shoes, dirt-covered floors, and spending as much time getting to our vehicles as it took to drive them to work, my patience wore thin. I began calling the construction company, calling neighbors, calling city officials looking for answers. No one really had any.
By March, the new lane in front of our house had been paved. While I no longer felt as entrenched as before, there was still several feet of mud between the street and what was left of our old driveway. Work halted once more.
This is when I really began to go a little insane. More warm, sunny days passed with no progress. I began studying the gap between the street and our driveway, brainstorming ways to fill it in. I asked, only half jokingly, "What could they do if I poured the concrete myself?" After all, it was my property. I asked my grandfather -- in all seriousness -- how to mix and pour concrete.
During all of this, Johnie was back to juggling another full time work load and full time school load. I had asked too politely that he only take a couple classes during this semester. He hadn't understood that it was a completely selfish request on my part. I needed him more. I needed him to help me more, to spend more time with me. All of that was lost in translation. Each week I asked him to drop a class or two; each week my request went unheeded.
He was also going through what turned out to be a five month application, interview, and negotiation process with the job he has now.
It was all too much for me. What had been mild stress-related stomach issues in January intensified in March, and a few other stress-related ailments followed. I ended up having to spend a week on the couch. It was then that Johnie realized what I was really asking from him, a week too late to drop any classes.
On April 6th, Johnie accepted an offer for the job he has now. We were now on our sixth month with the mud hole in our front yard, and faced with the challenge of selling a house without a driveway. Our friend and realtor enthusiastically crossed the mud and helped us create a strategy for planting a 'sold' sign in the front yard as quickly as possible.
Thankfully, and ironically, and bitter-sweetly, the work to our driveway was completed on April 18th. One day before the house officially went on the market. The remaining yard and sod work wasn't actually completed until after we moved to Kentucky in May.
I was glad to offer a driveway for the house to potential buyers -- with the promise of a nice new yard -- but I was frustrated, angry and sad that we had endured those months without getting to enjoy the benefits from the work.
The stress and craziness that descended in September was still continuing in April. As we planned an 800-mile move still fraught with uncertainty, there was no end in sight.
