Status Update

Panic.

For all of you have remarked at how calm I am about this whole move thing, how zen, well, the moment has come: I'm freaking out. So there you go. I'm human.

Last night, Dave and I were trying to sort some details about actual, specific, move logistics (like who is driving what vehicle from Brooklyn to Boulder), and I got butterflies in my stomach and tears in my eyes and when I was finally able to speak again I said - well, first I said "I can't talk about this right now" and left the room to do some laundry and cry in private- but then I said, "I'm sorry- I think it's just hitting me."

"That we're moving?" Dave asked, and laughed. Which is fair because really, it is a little ridiculous. Especially since I have always been the future-oriented part of this pairing. And since I have been pushing for a move for at least 2 years.

"Not that we're moving- What that means," I said. And he didn't know what to say to that.

I think what has happened is this: for several months now, I have gone from one deadline to another, just making it, under the wire, in the eleventh hour: from the two books to the trip to Boulder to the lease on a new rental and contract at a new school to our first Open House to the girls' birthday parties. And now all of that is behind me and as the air clears.... I see a much bigger, badder, scarier deadline looming and suddenly it is so very soon and there is way too much to do and we have so little control over so many big things like selling our house and finding me a job in a city where I have no connections and it is pushing my boundaries waaaaaaaaaaaay beyond my comfort zone. Have I ever mentioned that I am a control freak? That I am terrible at anticipation? Yes? Okay. Well, both still true.

Meanwhile, at the birthday party this weekend, I actually saw friends. Lots of them. And I remembered that I like them a lot. That even if I do not have family here, I have an important support network. I mean, who's going to loan me their card table and grocery cart in Boulder? Who would help us carry all of our party supplies back to our car- if we had anyone to host at a party in the first place? I am at that point where I can look at the calendar of the time we have left all on a single page. Where my days are so finite that I will no longer be able to do everything and see everyone I want to before we go- it simply won't be possible. And I hate this sense that somehow I let time slip away, that I should have managed better, chosen differently, re-prioritized. Of course, having kids just highlights the passing of time because they change so much so quickly- and visibly; last week, my best friend had her first baby, a beautiful boy named Daniel Bing, and while I am so glad that I got to meet him in his very first hours, I am also aware that I won't be here as he gets big and sits up and learns to crawl, or while Marni grows into motherhood. Daniel is a bittersweet reminder of all that I am leaving behind, and I am afraid with the knowledge of how easily we can forget, move on, live our lives isolated by the moment.

I take some comfort in knowing myself well enough to know that once we get to Boulder, I should be fine: I don't do well with arriving; I'm much more comfortable having arrived. But I also know that in a way, because our whole time in Boulder is designed as a transition, we will actually spend our next year or two in a state of arriving; I am trying to be excited about that, but I'm also a little nervous to willingly put myself outside my comfort zone for such an extended period. So no, it's not just hitting me that we are moving in physical time or space; but I am just starting to wrap my head around the distance I am asking myself to move on the less tangible scales of measurement.