Checkin' Out

You know you really are moving when all the pictures come off the walls.

Until then, just packing up the china and such, it seems much more far off and abstract, to think about actually leaving a house.

We've lived here 3.5 years, which is likely to be longer than we will live any place else for the duration of Don's CG career.

When we moved here I didn't think it would be that long; we were actually expecting that Don's advancement would have us moving after a year or two... so I don't think I ever really let myself feel totally settled here.

And yet my daughter has grown from a 5-month-old to a 4-year-old in this house. My son was born here and is now a toddler. We've collected two more cats. There's been a lot of living in this skinny little house here in Nowheresville, Maryland.

I find some of the most peculiar feelings of "loss" surrounding a move come not from the house itself, but from the town and community. I have pictures and memories of this house enough to keep it fresh in my mind for a long time. We take our treasures with us, of course, and we keep our friends near to our hearts. But what about the nice mailman? Or the familiar faces at the commissary? Favorite hairdresser? Or just the routine of knowing what lane to be in to most easily make the turn into Target?

These are all the comforts of knowing a place that take time, and are the things that you really can't take with you.

BUT the fun of it all is getting to know all those things in some new place, and that IS the adventure we signed up for.

So, now that packing boxes has shifted from my part-time hobby to my full-time, frantic business for the next few days, I am going to declare radio silence here, lest I fool myself into thinking that I have any free time. My parents will be arriving this weekend to help us with the final load-up, then the kids and I will be shipping out for a lovely period of limbo with family until Don graduates and we are ready to move all together to our new house.

Oh, and we will find out where that will be in approximately 72 hours. Not that I'm counting or anything.

I'll be back in a week or so, after we get ourselves organized. Have a lovely October!!