Future Reflections

Last week was awesome! Yes, awesome. Just awesome. We were in Boston from Sunday to Tuesday, I think? I don’t even know. What I DO know is that I shall never — and folks, I mean NEVER — sleep in the same room as my beloved child again. She did not sleep. Oh, you think I’m exaggerating! Oh ho ho HO! Ask Adam, who had a breakfast meeting on Monday morning and did not get a second of sleep the evening prior! No, really, not one second, as he suffers from insomnia and was awake still when she woke up for the day! She was mysteriously awake awake AWAKE! from 1-3 a.m., rising for the day no later than (NO LATER THAN) 4:45 a.m. It was a horror show. I cried more than she did, of that I am sure.

And yet. We’re moving there for real this time. Longtime readers may remember that five years ago (OMFG five), we left Boston for Florida, then Vermont and now … well, now, we go home, I guess. For good. For good! We’re done moving around, done tripping around the country to see where the next job takes us, and it’s just … well, it’s weird, to me, I don’t know why. On the one hand, I’m excited, because our families are there. Friends! Friends I’ve had for multiple decades! Hell, Megan is there! TwoBusy is there! Many of you are there!

Emotionally, though, I’m having a hard time with it. In part — well, majority — it’s that I love it here. Oh sure, I moved here knowing it was but a temporary stop, but I really did grow to love it here. Sam was born here. I won’t get to have her sibling at the same hospital. Hell, Sam’s sibling will be born in a different state. My friends! Oh, my friends. I love them so, and leaving them kills me.

And, as I’ve mentioned, when I left there, I was a very different person and to be honest, I’m afraid of turning back into her. I was stressed all the time — and I mean, all the time, from I’m not even sure what. I worked constantly, and had this irrational fear that if I quit and/or lost my job, or fell even one tiny rung on the ladder of my not-so-illustrious career, the world would come crashing down and my life would be ruined. Oh, you think I’m exaggerating, but oh, I am not. I suppose it was infinitely more complicated than that — no, I know it is — but that’s how it manifested itself. By the time we arrived in Florida, I was a twitchy mess in need of a spa treatment and some intensive therapy (which I got — well, the therapy, anyway).

(Side note: this, in part, but my no means all, is why I freelance and stay home with Sam. I am much better suited to a flexible work arrangement that allows me to focus on my family and we are lucky that we can do it. I know, I know, it sounds like a cop out, and believe me, I know how lucky I am — I do. But you must trust me: my anxiety was something to behold, and though I am greatly improved, I don’t think I’m cured enough to go back to it while my kid(s) are small. At least not in the Boston area, where the whole thing began. It was like, disability-level crippling and I … I’m embarrassed writing this, because it sounds so inane and full of shit, but dudes, I went to therapy and medication to deal with it, and again, SUPAH COMPLEX.)

And that’s a pile of shit that has me in some kind of strange PTSD purgatory that I have to work through while mourning the loss of a life that I built here, and look forward to a building a bright future back home.

In short, on top of the logistics of potentially finding a place to live, packing up our entire house and moving to a new place, did I mention this is all happening IN TWO WEEKS? Oh, didn’t I? Sorry about that.

It’s happening in two weeks.

Bottom line: I am having a hard time. A very hard time. Emotionally, stress-wise and every way imaginable.

I am having a hard time.

In other piles of shit (wow, this is joyful, isn’t it?), there is finding a place to live in a metro area where houses and apartments disappear before the listing has been active for more than an hour, and ergo, we may find ourselves in some kind of extended stay hotel arrangement for a month before we find a permanent place and doesn’t THAT sound like a spectacular situation for a learning-to-walk toddler? And ho ho HO! We return sometime this week to look for housing while simultaneously finding out if that situation will work out! I’m sorry MetroWest. I am well and truly sorry about the late-night screaming my child is about to release upon you like the tentacles of the kraken.

I missed you guys last week. I hope to see you more this week.

Happy Monday!

*MGMT

46 comments April 18th, 2010