relocation | girlonahalfshill

August 5, 2016

Moving Day

I can’t sleep. After months of travel, I didn’t expect tonight to be different than so many other night’s when I faced ambitious plans the following day. Months of preparation have gone into tomorrow’s event. It seems somehow appropriate that the Olympics kick off tonight. In my own small way, this feels like an Olympian effort that we’re launching tomorrow.

People move cross country all the time. Many have sacrificed so much more than I am to strike out in a new direction and find opportunities for their families. I’m just the next one in a long, long line. Hunting educational advancement, gathering experiences.

And tomorrow, no, later today. It starts in a few hours. The sky is already colored a dusky rose and the stars have receded. My mind isn’t spinning. I can find fatigue, but not sleep.

It is already after 7 am on the East Coast, our soon-to-be home. A week from today, I’ll be handed the keys to our new home and Gabe and I will carry box after box up to the second and third floors of a home that the boys and I will share for the next year. We are a week away from our new life.

And the harder that I push my eyelids closed and remind myself that I need sleep, the more evasive it becomes. And time ticks by – one hippopotamus, two hippopotamus, three…

July 16, 2016

Headed West

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

As I am snuggled into our tent, listening to the patter of rain, the boys on either side of me, our travel for the day finished, there is something very cosy about our night’s accommodations.
Last night we enjoyed a solid night of sleep at my cousin’s lovely home in Fairfield, Connecticut and today we toured Mark Twain’s home in Hartford before wandering north through poorly paved back roads in Massachusetts to find our campsite. I made most of these travel arrangements so long ago that I have no recollection of my selection process for each place. How I stumbled across Fernwood Forest Campground in the minuscule town of Hinsdale, Massachusetts, I have no idea, although Twain could think up something, I’m sure.

It’s always a surprise to see what the boys connect with during our travels: the Titanic tour in Pigeon Falls, Tennessee, which I had imagined might be a waste of time and money turned out to engage all three of us, my uncle’s suggestion of the Natural History Museum in Raleigh was greatly appreciated, the tour of my cousin’s farm in Oklahoma has been remembered and I have tried my best to preserve the wheat and rye that Spencer received through every stop’s loading and unloading of the car.

And, again, as we wind through country roads, weaving alongside streams and passing meadows of wildflowers, I am struck by how exceptionally beautiful this country is. Perhaps it’s not specific to the United States. It seems that anytime we are away from development, the views have been magnificent, whether we’ve been in Alabama, Nevada, Colorado or Massachusetts. I’ve also found cities that have surprised me – Hartford’s capital building looked like a gothic castle, New Brunswick, New Jersey was so much bigger than I expected and felt shiny and new, with Rutgers University holding a starring role, Houston was more expansive than I could have ever imagined and, on the other hand, New Orleans was all that I had hoped it would be and I left highly aware that I had barely scratched the surface.

And this is the portion of the trip that people have questioned more often than anything else about our summer’s venture: we are headed back to California. In explanation, I had no desire to haul our worldly possessions behind us on a ten thousand mile trip. Our little Honda hybrid has averaged between 40 and 51 mpg and only complained when I lost focus and plowed it into a curb in Oklahoma City, popping the tires on the passenger side of the car. (Those who know me will find this pathetically typical.) But, we had destinations and people to see, both north and south. It made sense to sweep through the South first and return through the northern states. At the end of all of this travel, it is necessary to move the contents of our storage unit to Pennsylvania, at which point the boys will be spared the bulk of the relocation by staying in California and flying out when our possessions are hopefully safely sequestered in our new home.

And while our car is traveling west now, I continue to glance over my shoulder, hoping for a soft landing in August, trying to wrap my head around the new geography and keep on top of communications with the college and potential landlords.

It’s dark now and the rain has slowed, but there are strange birds making wheezy sounds nearby. I’ve never heard anything quite like them before. Meanwhile, my eldest is telling me about his plans for the story that he’s composing. The familiar and unfamiliar, mingling by lamplight.

July 12, 2016

Purpose

Highly abused, often confused buzzword that it is – this summer, which has been the culmination of five years of planning and dreaming, is fueled by purpose. Reconnecting to my father’s memory and his family, exploring our soon-to-be home, introducing my sons to history, science, geography and literature through activities and travel and spending time with my sons.

A dear friend told me that success is “constancy of purpose.” If so, then the scope of what I have set us against this summer would argue against our success. I had planned so much more… LSAT prep, books, heaps of books that are weighing down the back of my car, but which I have yet to crack open. It seems that I may have to content myself with the fact that our travels are running on schedule and we are all happy and healthy. My academic goals will be the primary focus soon enough and the boys have the bulk of my attention for now.

But, today we reached Pennsylvania and set foot on Bryn Mawr’s campus for the first time. It’s beautiful, but it didn’t feel intimidating or cold. It reminded me of Cambridge with its masonry and chimneys. Tomorrow I’ll meet my dean and get an official tour of the campus, but I have seen enough to feel confident about the fit. My eldest son called my mom to tell her about our visit and he described the college as a well-designed castle. My youngest kept looking at the buildings while confirming that we were in the right place, “They’re giving you money to go to school here? Here? Good job, mom!”

I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve had ideas for posts, but we took a day off from productivity in Nashville on the 4th of July and then there were a few intense days of driving, followed by visits with my relatives in North Carolina, which were wonderful days that gave my sons treasured time on the beach and the opportunity to remember their grandpa, while getting to know their great aunt and great uncles for the first time. (They have met their Great Uncle Dan before, but briefly at my father’s memorial service, so this was a much different experience for them.)

And now we are almost ready to point out car westward again. And there is more relief in that thought than I imagined when I embarked on this journey. In late breaking news, my boyfriend just notified me that he’s gotten approval for his request for time off, so he’ll be helping me drive the U-Haul from California to Pennsylvania in August! I don’t know if I’m more relieved to learn that I won’t have to learn how to drive a 17′ U-Haul truck on my own or to find out that we’ll have a week of travel together and although I know that moving may seem like a less than idyllic vacation, this is the same man who has stood by my side through my father’s passing, the passing of my friend and employer, my worries about my children and my parents. He’s been my comfort through it all and when he’s by my side, adversity doesn’t feel overwhelming. It all feels more hopeful, so I’m beyond happy to know that we’ll have this time together.

On that note, I am going to sign off for the night. I will try to write again sooner next time. There have been ideas shooting through my head for days, but I haven’t found the time to set them to type. Good night.

1 Comment

June 20, 2016

Looking back

I was a runaway child. I ran away from home initially at sixteen years of age. Few characteristics distinguish me to this same degree. It colors who I bond with, who my friends are, what friendship and family mean to me, what home means to me, my goals and how I want to get there. I am not this way because I was a runaway child, but I was a runaway child because of the factors that brought me to that point and the fact that I was an unrepentant runaway means that much of the defiance that I felt at sixteen still resonates in me – somewhere.
Don’t get me wrong. I was angry and hurt at sixteen in ways that no longer apply. I no longer feel the same degree of anguish and melodrama. But I still feel in a way that I half expected to have been dulled by age. I’m still driven by relationships and connection. I still swim in my emotions and feel that they are exceptionally significant.

And in many ways, the upcoming move to Pennsylvania is the kind of move that I’ve always hoped for. There have been moments when I’ve drooled over the idea of moving abroad, but I am rooted in the United States to an embarrassing degree. I want to travel the globe, but, especially with my dreams of becoming an attorney, I truly doubt that I will ever reside overseas.
But a move to the East Coast? That has felt predestined. Then why has it come at this particular moment?

I don’t know about all of the various sayings that get tossed around: The heart wants what the heart wants. Everything works out for the best. Love conquers all. Well, actually, I do have opinions about all of the above. I don’t really believe in any of them. I think that we often mistake our heads, habits, hobbies and hormones for our hearts. I think that “Everything works out for the best” is the sort of comment that (please forgive) upper middle class Americans can generally get away with saying because they are statistically in a position to believe such things, but my experience leans in a rather different direction, (I say while acknowledging the multitude of ways in which I am ridiculously fortunate and probably as likely to be as safe in such assumptions as my fellow Americans. And love, when it happens, can fall prey to all sorts of things. It isn’t nearly as hearty as we like to think it is. It scares the shit out of most of us – even sometimes in the platonic form, it can still make us feel vulnerable and insecure in all sorts of unexpected ways.

And it is with this mindset that I am facing down both this upcoming move, current travel and the probable effects of these ventures on my current relationship. A relationship that I wasn’t expecting – knowing that I was going to be leaving town, I had dated, but had avoided any serious entanglements… and then we started seeing each other as friends. And now I have someone miles and miles away who I don’t want to be away from at all.

And yet, I am no longer a Marin County resident and my future isn’t there. Bryn Mawr has granted me admission this Fall as a McBride Scholar. It’s a phenomenal opportunity and one that I won’t squander; in a different, but similar way, this summer’s travel plans with my boys are precious and not to be wasted.

We have made it to Kansas ahead of schedule. The boys and I decided unanimously last night to proceed with the road trip, but to cut out the fat and return to California a week or two earlier than originally planned. I miss him and I, frankly, feel rather silly galavanting cross-country when I’m missing him so much.

So, time to break out the drawing board again.

Tag: relocation