I met some friends here briefly from out of town for lunch today, and as we were chatting one of them said to me “So…are you ok with this move?” I’ve been doing my best to be hopeful and optimistic about it, so I was a little surprised myself at the answer that fell out of my mouth. “No. I’m not. I don’t want to go anywhere, and I’m heartbroken about it…but there’s really no choice.”
That’s the truth. There’s always a choice, of course, but in this instance none of the alternatives is good. I can go on single-parenting, but that way lies madness. Even more to the point, it would probably mean giving up on my marriage and I’m in no way ready to do that. I miss my husband for far more reasons than relief from child-care. And at the same time, I’m terrified. My support system is here. I invited a few people over last night for a packing party to help me demolish a lamb roast I had in the freezer that I myself can’t eat, and when I looked around realized that there were 11 people wandering around. That includes the 3 of us who live here, of course, but it was just a gathering of chosen family, and we had a capacity crowd.
My parents are here as well, and I still have painful memories of the reasons we moved them down, ironically enough from a town about 20 miles north of where I’m moving to now. I was driving between Indianapolis and northwest Indiana every weekend for their sake ten years ago, and damn near killed myself doing it. I have terrified visions of doing so again, with the only changes being that I’m going from north to south instead of south to north, and that now I have a small child who takes kindly neither to mom leaving nor to lengthy car trips. I have friends here I talk to daily, and see several times a week. I’ve no least desire to leave them behind.
So no, really, I’m not ok with moving. But it’s going to happen anyway, so forgive me while I shake out my optimism and put it back on. I have packing to do.