When does the fun part start?

It has been another grueling couple of weeks of preparation and "lasts".  Ethan has been in dance for 6 years. Last night was his last banquet, and of course there were tears.  His teacher and owner of the studio awarded him a Certificate of Achievement entitled "I'll Miss You Like Crazy".  And I'm questioning everything. Is this going to ruin our childrens' lives?  What have we done? Are we crazy for pulling them away from everything they have ever known?  His tears triggered my own. 

Earlier in the day, my daughter had her last school performance. She was Black Dog in Treasure Island. She hugged her friends and I wondered if she was going to hate me for what we're doing.   She's known these girls since Kindergarten.

The house is not yet empty, so we're cleaning it out while at the same time trying to make the RV as livable as possible.  As I type, my computer is finally functional - for the first time in two weeks.  Meanwhile, we have sold 1 of 2 town homes and are going to leave our renters in 2 for as long as they like.  It's going to be tricky, but their situation is unique. We want to help them in any way that we can. 

This is my pattern. "I'll clean the kitchen. Well, I can't clean that until this stuff is out of here. We can't get this stuff out of here until we're done using the bathrooms in here.  And I can't get this other stuff out of here until so-and-so comes to claim it and pick it up.  And I definitely can't clean the floors until we're done tracking in and out of here carrying stuff out."  It's a helpless feeling.

The countdown is suddenly in the single digits.  I am running out of time, but I am incapable of finishing any single project. For a task-oriented person, this causes actual, physical pain.  I can not finish a single task, and my brain wants an escape.  There had better be a glittering rainbow of check marks at the end of this, or I'm afraid I'm going to dissolve into a blubbering heap.  I found a green Lego in an empty room today and just about lost my tenuous hold on composure. 

I try to console myself with the next thing that will make me glad.  I'll be glad when -
School is over.  We have 2 and half days to go!
The house is empty and clean.
We actually go somewhere instead of hanging out in a camper in our yard!

I'm ready for the fun part.  

Hello, Eczema, my old friend

The stress has decided to manifest itself in the physical world.  My hands look like a 13 year old's T-zone.  The little red bumps are worse than pimples, though, because they relentlessly itch.  This is a well-documented stress reaction of mine.   Hey, at least I have a crystal clear signal from my body that says, "STOP!" 

Stuff happened this week. A lot of it.  The estate sale happened. I don't know what I expected, but I do not feel sad.  I keep waiting for that, the sadness of loss.  "Alas and alack, my home is no more!"  But no, of course that's not how it is. Our home is now the RV. We took it with us.  And what is left after the estate sale madness (and madness, it absolutely was) is a shell of a house. For those looking to go this route, I'd say probably be dead first.  Then, it's totally fine when a team of people starts putting price tags on all of your belongings.  See, then it's all good when you have to be away from your house for two full days while they sell it all.  The way we did it was really taxing.  There are only so many things you can do, so many errands you can run.  The upside is that I got a new mattress topper.   The downside is that they did not sell everything.  Just a lot of things.  We now have the ominous job of going through what is left and either selling it ourselves (Craig's List, here we come), donating it or storing it.

We also finished getting Town home #1 cleaned up and ready to list this week. That was a three full days of cleaning.  The renters had not trashed the place or anything, but renters are different from owners.  There was some neglect and grime and that required elbow grease.   I found some new muscles that can be detected only by cleaning the floor behind a refrigerator. 

Meanwhile, we picked up the RV and started moving into it.  I'm just going to leave that there for now.  

And finally, it was mammogram time.  Many women can related to the stress of the call after a mammogram saying that additional pictures are needed.  It isn't a panicked, crisis type of stress. Rather, it's a low level hum, a persistent and nagging thought as one tries to talk oneself out of worrying.  "I'm sure it's nothing.  I'm fine. And if it's cancer, they're sure catching it early.  I don't feel sick at all.  So that's good.  And it's nothing, probably.  It's just a bad picture.  But if it is cancer, I really live close to a fantastic facility. Mayo is the best. I'll go there and I will be okay." And round and round it goes.  I went in Friday for the new pictures.  They took them. And then?  They wanted another one.   Now, it's cancer or at the very least a benign cyst.  I probably have to have it removed. They'll do a biopsy.  I might have to go through radiation or something, just to be safe.

"You are all clear. It is just overlapping tissue. You can go now." 

And then the relief floods through every cell and the realization of how much you've been carrying around weighs as you let it go.  Deep breath. 

And on we go. 

Speed bump

Mmmkay. Rough week about sums it up.  Good news or bad news?

The good news? We have apparently sold our house! I know! We haven't even listed our property yet, but there it is.  Our closest neighbors (who are currently renting) are coming over tomorrow night to basically seal the deal. So, I suppose I'm jumping the gun until we actually close.  But it looks like our house and land are in the hands of a very lovely couple.  Wow!  More about them later, because they truly are amazing people. But today is about something else. 

The bad news - and I say this with as much love as I can muster - is that we have been invaded. The estate sales company had the first of three staging days. And truly, not knowing what to expect here was a gigantic disadvantage.  Five people.  Five hours. Suddenly, my house is not my own.

They came. They rearranged. They priced. Everything. They put a price on our lives.  This is not a process for the faint of heart, the weak. I thought I could take it. But two hours in, I bailed. I was ready for wine at 4pm.  There are no words to describe this. I am literally sitting here, trying to decide how to articulate the reduction of one's LIFE.  I have actually seen this from the outside before, when someone passes away, dies.  The weekend after my sister's death, I found myself going through her clothes with my mother.  "Yes, that I'll take. That should be donated. This, that."  It was horrible and sickening, and the only way to get through something like that is not to think about what you're doing.  This is similar.  I understand now why people in this situation cry over a skirt. I read the blog of another woman, about to set sail with her family, as she wept over a skirt she had to give up. "I could take four, but I wanted five."  That is precisely how I feel now.  These items, a Christmas ornament here, a wine glass there, are not just things, right? They are memories that tie us to people, to memories, to our lives before today.   I was not at all prepared for the moment, even though I had tried, for a company to come in and put a price tag on my life thus far.  It was humbling and grating and, quite honestly, painful.

Knowing what I now know, I will do whatever I have to do to distract myself from this reality over the next week.  I will have lunch with friends. I will be away from my home, which is soon to be the shell where we once lived.  I will look forward.  If I could somehow describe the raw emotion I'm feeling tonight, because I know I will want to look back on this eventually, I am not sure I could do it justice. There is a feeling of sadness of course, but there is also a shame - shame, that I allowed these things to have such power.  Why do they mean anything at all?  They are nothing in the grand scheme. I want to look back on this in a year and be grateful for everything I had to leave behind in order to gain what I have gained. Freedom is more important than a skirt.  It may not feel that way today, but I know this to be true.  Freedom is the gift I am giving myself. I'm purchasing that gift with the things that have held me.  I've loved them and now I will let them go.