We’ve moved! Or, oh dear, what have we done?!

My family has relocated from lovely, tranquil, quiet (okay I concede to sometimes too quiet) Williamsburg to quite busy, quite rigorous Northern Virginia. It’s a big change, which now appears to be the understatement of the century.

We arrived one week and two days ago. And it’s been a challenge. TO SAY THE LEAST.

Shit keeps breaking. Like seriously. Example: yesterday afternoon as I walked across the basement I felt a drop of water hit my head. What? I looked up to see the ceiling yellowed with water, the retro salon light (I don’t know they are these ugly long lights that look like they are from a pool hall) above me filled with water. Hmmm. Electricity + Water = Bad in my limited scientific experience. Currently we sit without water waiting for the plumber. Waiting and waiting. For like almost four hours now. Hey, take your time buddy.

But seriously, what the hell?! We just bought this house, and in the space of a week my husband is feeling some serious buyer's remorse.

Maybe I am too, I just don’t want to join the fray in saying it. Like if I do, this choice to move up here, might not have been the right one. Anyway I don’t like to say those things out loud, even if I am the only one who stays quiet about it. Also, that would ruin my longstanding role as peacemaker, soother, placater, roof holder upper.

So along with a rainy ceiling we have a list of challenges. Ah where to start?

1. Locks that were installed in the maybe 1940s. Me: locksmith see these lovely antique locks, can we replace them with something that will not cause an anxiety attack when I try to open the door? Locksmith: Sorry lady, they stopped making those like fifty years ago. To be brutally honest you need to replace the entire door, or doors actually as there are like five of them. Me: hahahahah fuck you
2. More water! Rainstorm this time. Fills the window wells. Then they cry and lots of water, I guess they are just the tears of this fucking house that find their way, conveniently, if I do say so, to the drain in the middle of the utility room. Huh, that’s funny. One of them is actually coming in right behind an outlet. See above equation.
3. Bathrooms. Ok this one is a first world problem, I get that. But since I live in the first world, it’s relevant. The sinks are for PEOPLE WITHOUT PRODUCT.  They are not for haircentric people, which I OBVIOUSLY AM. Or even regular people who need to have space for things like toothbrushes and toothpaste. I know, I know, I saw the sinks before we bought the house. I am certain they have shrunk since closing.
4. No curtains. Maybe never any curtains. So yes, everyone sees everything. Since we have like 1000 windows it might take me reentering the workplace to cover the cost.
5. Rapunzel. Our darling girl Ella, in the throes of puberty has ascended the third floor and very rarely is seen down here with us, well, more normal, less aggressive, less moody individuals. I have this odd vision of her as a caterpillar who is up there, in the trees, maybe in her chrysalis, waiting and planning and biding her time before her big reveal. I think this and then recall SHE IS ONLY TWELVE, WE ARE JUST GETTING STARTED. Then I cry a little bit, as she is driving me to drink.
6. The outlet behind the bed. It looks, when I wedge my head between the headboard and the wall, to be dead center, just out of my reach from either side. I try to move the bed. Sorry it weighs 5000 lbs. Why oh why didn’t I plug in the surge protector while the movers were here? I had one! Damnit! So I am, for the foreseeable future destined to plug my phone in seventeen feet from my side of the bed. No more Candy Crush Soda Pop or Audible to lull me to sleep at night as I try to NOT THINK ABOUT THIS LIST.
7. The couch. So beautiful, so comfortable. So doesn’t fit in this house. So doesn’t fit down the steps to the basement. Ninety six inches long and I am pretty sure it cost like 96 hundred thousand dollars. Since move in day it sits quietly in the sunroom, taking up the entire space. And now I resent it and what it represents. Which I guess is a foray into Craigslist, which is seriously inconvenient.
8. Riding bikes. Today I took my first bike ride at 7:15. I rode to see the danger level that Ella would encounter should she ride her bike to her new middle school. She is, as is Holden, within one mile of school, and qualifies as a WALKER. You see, they haven’t met her, or they would DISQUALIFY her. That bike ride down this busy road? They have to be kidding. Shawn says fight the transportation office. At this point I will fight anybody. Holden’s school, though the bike ride is only 6 minutes and relatively easy hardly the level of busyness we can expect in September. :ugh: In his quest to be more grown up he leads the way as we ride to his school and back, and then again, and one more time. And then with Shawn. Also he cries when we say we are too busy to go again. Yes, cries, like real tears and everything. Lots of them.

I haven’t been to the gym yet, but I didn’t list that. And I am sure that is making me crazy, too.

Oh, the other house, the the one in quiet, easy to access Williamsburg, the one with so many easy to access outlets, and large sinks, it waits for a sale, and we watch with baited breath, and try not to think of the stress that will accompany two mortgages, in addition to the stress of the above letters a - h.

Transition. Just take it slow, easy, one day at a time. That’s what mothers and other smart people say to me. Why is that so difficult? Why is it making all of us so irritable and frustrated. Why is it taking the glow off of an experience that should be exciting and fun?

Oh who knows. The plumbers just got here.

Maybe things are looking up?

Fingers crossed.

Knock knock

It is not often in life that we are given the gift of a second chance in life. 

I get that sounds dramatic. I like a little drama. Not too much, but a little bit. 

For the last seven months I have been considering that statement. Some of those days it was overwhelming. Paralyzing, even. And I shut it down, refusing to hear it, look at it, think about it. 

But as time goes on, and I heal from my old life - a terrible work life that bled into all other life forms - my choices - good or bad, good and bad, I feel less afraid of the second chance. Less. 

I am tentatively curious. What could this mean? What could it mean to everything? Too much...what could it mean to today? Tomorrow?

My husband waits and watches to see what I do. 

I wait to see when I will shrug off the remaining guilt, the paralysis of the last five years. 

He says it's time to let it go. Stop being so introspective already and let it go. 

Let go of shitty and stuck. Because you're not. 

Let go of things that bound you to a life that is no longer yours. 

Ghosts of fear, anger, resentment, hate, yes, hate. In the last year I spent a lot of time with that word - a terrible tasting word, on my tongue. It infected my other words, and settled in my mouth like a toothache, but one unable be brushed or flossed or hell, drilled out of your mouth. I know, I tried. 

Time is the only salve, and God knows, it takes its time. 

More than losing - losing? my business. Lose. Walk away. Give away. Trade away. Escape. 

Which is it? 

Depends on the day. Or hour. Minute. Moment. I have needed time to heal from that too, and I've been taking it. I've been given it. Give and take give and take. 

When I used to sit in Wendy's office, (my beloved therapist of my early twenties) perched in some tall office building on 57th St, I had this concept of myself as being special. I felt it. It was magical, hard to explain but very real. 

As my situation worsened, that idea went away. But the memory of it did not. 

And lately I think - is it coming back? Or what is that - some twinge of something good and hopeful. Words and ideas knock knock knocking to be let out out of my introspective brain, out of my on-the-mend broken heart. Could I/it be coming back? I hope but I can't dwell on what it could mean. 

Not yet. 

For now I blow on the embers and pray for fire. 

Tiempo y espacio. My go to reflection from my recent trip to Spain. 

Also it sounds better in Spanish - more dramatic. 

Time and space. Luxuries not afforded to many. I get that. 

I also know that without them I wouldn't be healing. 

And I am. 

-----------

I am who I am.

I write that reality. 

And when I fail, I fail spectacularly. 

Catch and Release

Navigating girls as they go through the rough waters of adolescence may be the toughest job we have as moms. 

It is for me. 

I am reminded of this daily as I struggle to keep my darling daughter on course. She is my biggest challenge, a true dichotomy - girl and woman at once. It is as if she has only just been born, just emerged from her shell, glowing and glorious like Botticelli's Venus, and then in a moment, I must carry her, for her weak and untested legs reduce her a baby again. 

It is this that makes mothering a tween so so hard. Independence. Need. No. Yes. Mom. Alone. It is a dicey game of catch and release. Stay. Go. Show me the way. Go away. Know. 

Eleven has proven to be our most trying age. For a mom and daughter who locked eyes only moments after she entered this world - and have been steeped in love ever since, eleven threatens to make us strangers. Minute to minute, that is how I track our progress these days. Minute one she is doey eyed and emanating love. Mom, I love you! And two, her sharp edged tongue wounds and forces her retreat inside a mind that moves so fast I must watch from the sidelines. 

She is two sides of a coin. I see her growing - and measuring her space, flexing, reaching. She cringes as she responds to this world of women judged so often by exteriors. She recoils when I try to reason why and judges me harshly for allowing that absurd reality into our safe and virginal eleven-ness. All while the hallmarks of puberty have their way with her. She begs for a phone - and I fiercely protect her from one. Her analytical mind questions the antics of her pubescent peers while her tender heart longs to be included. 

As her body grows she has become all angles. Affectionate touch from a tween is at your own risk. There is no telling where her next awkward limb launch will land. Knees. Elbows. Headbutts. Ouch. And then she sulks. 

Straddling youthful innocence and cringee "I am going to nibble at the fruit from the tree of knowledge" is not a comfortable position. Just recently the sixth grade hosted "twin day." Please ask Sarah's mom if we can match tomorrow. Both of us moms thought this a darling idea. Sarah, not so much. She is in a faster lane to grown up-ness. Genuinely troubled by this rejection, my daughter looks at me with a little girl's eyes, and a little girl's question - why mom? Sarah has an older sister and is naturally influenced by her. My girl still loves cats, puppies, bunnies, bugs, you name it. I hear her trumpet: I Love Snails! She has no time for frivolity, be it make up or boys or clothes. Or, now that we've come around to it, clean clothes, brushed hair and teeth - all of these things feel like inefficiencies to her. 

I know that soon her oft repeated statement of "my friends like me for who I am" will start to show wear, and I will have to gather her up in my arms and comfort her and try to help her understand the unfairness of the world she is toeing into. 

The spectrum of child to woman-like is vast - just look at the sixth grade lunch room. Each table it's own microcosm of the journey to adolescence. Each time I deliver lunch I try to peek at the other girls - are we close? Are we very far behind? What is normal? Is awkward our new normal? The first few months of middle school were painful to watch. Painful to participate in - that was very obvious - and felt interminable. Ask any mom. Ask any sixth grader. You'll find your tribe. Don't worry, they are out there.  Assurances from a mom who hoped by saying it with conviction might make it happen sooner. Praying it actually happened. 

Quirky. An odd duck. Nose in a book. Happy to be alone for long periods of time. (They feel long anyway.) Would she remain a spectator at the lunch tables? Would my sixth grade hot mess find a match at the lunch table dating game? Am I the only one worrying about this?! 

That part has taken care of itself - thank God. The new year brought similar friends - surprisingly, even some who also write stories and read books about warring tribes of cats. Who knew. Maybe Grandma did. Maybe it was just time, time and space that these little ones needed to show themselves. 

Daddy's girl, sister, granddaughter, niece, my girl: all relationships are affected by this change and are evolving at a different pace. On the other side of her we walk with tentative steps. We tiptoe actually. Her brother - younger by two very important years (years of play and silliness that she has largely left behind) - lives in a state of villainy with her. Sadly, he may be the only one confident in his position. He mourns the loss of her, and waits for glimpses of the sister she used be. I try to explain. 

In addition to, or, I feel it is important to add, I am a parent to a daughter with high anxiety. She emerged from the womb with this temperament, looking at me and at her father with eyes that searched for meaning. We knew then that she was special. Brilliant. Beautiful. Difficult. Gifted children often battle high anxiety, as told to us by her pediatrician. And preschool teacher. And counselor. And reiki therapist. And grandma. And GI specialist. 

Oh, and each other. My husband and I tell that to each other. 

So, yes, our path into puberty is ensconced in anxiety. But that is a separate story. 

Any journey we take as humans where we transcend our previous reality is fraught with challenge - I can say that and I believe it. I get it. 

Also, it is exhausting. 

And heartbreaking. 

And gratifying - periodically. 

And also beautiful, if only for a minute at a time.