This is hard. Leaving is hard. Writing about leaving is hard. It's 4:00am, and I woke up thinking "Just go write it down", and between then and now you can't imagine how many things I've come up with to do instead. Watch Borne Identity on Netflix. Read about Gwyneth Paltrow's shiny legs. Scrub the cabinetry in the kitchen. Anything but blog about how hard this is. Because - really - seriously - who am I to complain!! I'm leaving on the "Adventure Of A Lifetime!" That's everybody's favorite saying. I can't think about it like that. Too much pressure to have a lifetime's worth of adventure in the next year. I think we're having the adventure of our life. If we can make this next year work, we will have the skills, knowledge, and juice to be shooting new projects through the pipeline, working together a year from now, and I'm just as excited about that part as I am the year of travel.
But right now is hard. Everyone in the house has lost their funny bone except Owen, and instead of taking his que, I just get infuriated! Yesterday Bob was like "Let's just do it Owen's way. He's the only one of us having any fun!" I could only point out that after 2 days of compiling clothing to take on the trip, all Owen had in his pile was two t-shirts and a pair of boxers, so while he was having a lot of fun walking around the house, poking his fingers out of the top of his head, and saying "My antenna say it's getting worse in here.", I couldn't see myself joining in. Thank God for Owen, and he's right of course. It is getting worse in here. Know why? BECAUSE IT'S SO FLIPPING HARD!!!!
We leave this house one week from today. We leave the country a little more than a week after that. I need to sell a car this weekend, and another car next week. The couch doesn't fit into the storage cube. We have bookcases, lawn furniture, and a composter to deliver to friends. The realty company is trouping people through the house in the midst of chaos. Owen has his goodbye sleep over party tomorrow night. We have a TV crew coming next Wednesday, and instead of stepping up the exfoliation and wondering what to wear, I caught myself thinking "I can't loose a whole afternoon to this!" Truly - I have lost the excitement of adventure somewhere in the agony of dismantling my life. Every single thing we own had been addressed, evaluated, and decided upon. This is why it's different from moving to a new house. We can't pack it up and deal with it on the other side of the move. We have had to find almost everything we own a new home. We've done well. I see light. I just see very little humor, and it's about to kill me.
So this morning, instead of curling up with Jason Borne, or scrubbing out my fury in a Pine-Sol haze, I sat down with a cup of coffee and my notebook, and gave myself a little talking to. I am in the midst of an extraordinary moment in my life. It deserves my full self. I shall try my best to be here for it.