Tipping Point

So much to say, so little time.

I am sitting in my living room, surrounded by towers of boxes.  My home has been transformed into a cardboard palace.  The moving crew swept through my house today, packing up the contents of every cupboard, shelf and drawer.  I feel like a fish out of water sitting here and NOT working.  But it is wonderful.  Almost makes up for the chaotic stress of the last several weeks. 

Ok, honestly, it totally makes up for it.  I feel completely pampered right now.  I'm trying to soak it up.  Because tomorrow, we're setting off on a 14 day, 3200 mile road trip.  And I'm pretty sure there won't be much pampering during any of it.  Because I forgot to pack a nanny.  And now it's too late because all of our stuff is sealed away and we won't see it again for nearly a month.

Which is mildly interesting considering the odd assortment of things that we have since remembered that we needed to set aside so they wouldn't get packed.  Rain jackets (summer rainstorms are common in places other than this valley desert, I hear.)  First aid kit (those steri-strips were VERY hard to find this morning when Shaggy stabbed his leg with an exacto knife--he really should go get stitches, but refuses.)  Cake pans (we're having a birthday party for B during our pit stop in Chicago, doesn't everyone include parties in their cross country move/road trips?)  The pepperidge farm pirouettes that we were saving as a special last night in Fresno treat.  Somehow, I don't think they'll fare very well on their trip to the East coast.

I can't decide if we'll be relieved to have our stuff back or if we'll be wondering why it all seemed important enough to box up and send across the country.  Probably a bit of both.  It's crazy how much we take the conveniences of modern life for granted until we have to go without them for a while.  So many times during the last two days, I've turned around to just grab the cheese, or a knife, or a towel; to put something in the fridge or the microwave, and to find that I couldn't because they were packed up, or unplugged.  I will be grateful to have that convenience back at my fingertips next month.  But for now, I'm letting go.  It's time to focus on seeing the country with my kids.

The kids have begun to marvel that "it actually feels like we're moving now."  Even though they have been kicked out of the house the last few days to make way for the moving company.  It's nice having good friends who are willing to drop everything and take them in for a day.  How we will miss them!

All my visions of a controlled and orderly move have long since been tossed out the window.  Which, I have concluded, is unavoidable.  I wanted everything to be nicely put away when the packers showed up.  But it's impossible to keep things put away when simultaneously packing for a road trip.  Packing = mess.  There is no way around it.  And even though it might bother me, it's not really any harder for the packers to put things in boxes from drawers or from a pile on the floor.  The longer the process goes on, the less I seem to care.  And my stress level has steadily gone down as our stuff disappears.  I think I've reached that tipping point where emotion gets set aside, the desire to have control slips away, and I just let the process happen.  Our stuff will get trucked across the country with or without my influence.  Unpacking will be a total disaster no matter what happens on this end.  I hope that most of our stuff will show up intact (especially those irreplaceable photos and albums), but there's absolutely nothing I can do to help that happen.  Besides, there is only so much I can worry about.  And I have enough on my mind that there is simply no more room for worry.

Which is also what made this week's house showings much more manageable.  I simply didn't care that the house was a mess, that stuff was piled everywhere, that we were just sitting down to dinner when some buyers came through.  Buy the house or not, either way, I had bigger fish to fry.

Maybe this whole mess is just a way to force me to develop a more zen-like approach to life.  To let go a little more, and worry a lot less.  To stop overthinking and overplanning and just live my life, mess and all.