The Long and Busy Months

So it's been a while since I've been here. At this blog, not the internet or on my computer. I have spent plenty of time googling in the last few months.

It has been a busy and long few months since I last wrote. Long as we waited for answers. Waiting to find out what job my husband would finally find. Waiting to find out if the one that was far from our home was going to be the one. Waiting for that offer to be finalized.

I am not a fan of waiting. I like to plan. I like to know what is going to happen and I like to know all the things that can possibly happen. I don't like surprises. And yet, I found myself this year waiting. Waiting longer than I like, long enough to panic at times, to get discouraged. But then the answer came. An answer that should have been scary but after all the waiting it was nice to finally know.

And then the busy happened. The googling schools, hockey rinks, churches, Starbucks, homes in our new state of Wisconsin. The busy home searching trip with ten houses in one day, five the next, offers on two different houses and coming to agreement on one of those. Busy getting our condo ready to sell, having to leave at all times of the day so it could be shown, waiting for offers that never came and then debating the three offers we got in three days. Busy signing documents, packing the stuff we would need for the month we are in temporary housing which included two sets of hockey gear as well as our clothes, electronic equipment and enough books to keep Hockey Boy busy until we could get a library card. Busy saying goodbye.

That was the hardest part. The goodbyes.

I don't like goodbyes.

Goodbyes suck as Hockey Boy stated so eloquently and in this case appropriately. And so I refused to say goodbye. I went about the last weeks trying to pretend that nothing was changing, as if it was not our last time at our school, our church, the rink, the Sweet Shop, Starbucks.....

I tried to do that with my friends but that was a lot harder. The hugs were longer and tighter. The smiles forced. The see you laters catching in my throat as I knew it would be too long before I would see my friends again. The emptiness settling in as I would drive away from each last time.

I was doing okay though. I have had a lot of practice saying goodbye. But then I watched my son say goodbye to his friends on their last times. Each time, the boys would be full of smiles and laughter as they played but then the moment would come when we had to leave, when the goodbyes became real and as we walked away each time my oldest would lean into me and cry. And then I would cry.

I hugged him close to me, my head now can rest right on top of his and I cried with him. And then I reminded us both that the fact that it hurt so much to say goodbye meant that we had great friends that we loved very much. And I think we both felt a little better. Or at least I did, knowing that my son has such amazing friendships.

It has been a week and a half since we left California. It feels like forever ago now. I keep waiting for the moment when we pack up after our vacation and return home. I wonder if that feeling will go away when we actually get to move into our new home on August 1st. This temporary housing thing is not easy, though our practice of close quarters living in the last year has certainly helped.

That's where I am.

We have answers now. Life has slowed down again.

And I wrote something today.

So there's that.