How Lucky I Am....

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
― A,A Milne…Winnie The Pooh

How very lucky I am, indeed. And how very hard goodbye is. The Kid Store relocated last month, so that I could return to school. I found myself so caught up in the details of the move - the packing, the sorting, the storing of our lives - that I forgot about the emptiness. I forgot about that void that comes from saying “goodbye”, from turning your back to those who you love, and slowly walking away. Actually, I’m not so sure that I forgot about it, it was more that I pushed it away and refused to acknowledge it’s existence.

I think that if I had attempted to manage all of the logistics of the move, while being conscious of what we would be leaving behind, I never would have gotten past the point of filling out my application to the college. How can you sit down and “sell” your children on a move, try to make them see how it will really be a good thing, if your own heart is tearing up at the thought of leaving? No, it was far better that I “forgot”.

I forgot about the emptiness of an vacant house, how it becomes but a shell once it has been stripped of all possessions, how its walls seem to echo sadly with the memories of children laughing, of bedtime stories snuggled on the couch, of friends and family gathered round the dinner table. I forgot how it would hurt to run my hands down the beam where my children had stood to be measured, always convinced that they had grown “so, so, so big, Mama!” and to know that I could not take it with me. I forgot the emptiness that would engulf me as I sat on the beach in the moonlight one last time, scared out of my mind by the magnitude of what I was about to do. I forgot how strange it would be to see our entire life packed into boxes in the back of a truck, ready to be unloaded in a new situation, ready to fit wherever they are placed.

If only our hearts could be so easily convinced. Instead, my heart yearns for home, for what was left behind, for the warm arms of a community that welcomed me and my children home, and held us safe and snug when we needed it most. It breaks a little more some days, days when all I want is to be sitting in my best friend’s kitchen, chatting about nothing, while our kids run around in the back yard. Days when what I need most is for my Mom to stop by with a paper bag of steaming, fresh muffins…big ones for me, and special baby ones for her grandbabies. Days when I want to be able to walk down the road and smile and wave at the same people who smiled and waved at me when I was my children’s age, walking with my own mother. Days when I long to be snuggling my nephews and neice, and enjoying the time with my siblings. Days when I am troubled, and want so much to be able to knock on my Aunt and Uncle’s door, sit in their cozy nook with a cup of mint tea, and just know that they are there.

I convinced myself to forget I would be leaving all that, and instead focused on what we would be gaining. This is a fresh start for my little family, our “new beginning” as it were. This here, is the rest of my life, the time when I start actively working towards something that will provide us with security and stability for many years to come, that will allow me to give my children the life they deserve. I cannot allow myself to be sidetracked by all that was left behind - far to much is weighing on my doing this right. And that’s a scary though in and of itself. I’m on my own now, really and truly. it’s frightening, and yet, at the same time, it’s freeing. Sink or swim, as it were.

So now I putter around our new house, painting this, rearranging that, and slowly, every so slowly, it is becoming home. We are happy here, despite all that we miss, all that I still “forget”. We’re making it, the kids and I, together. I have to trust that soon this house too will echo with memories, with the laughter of new friends, with squeals of delight as my children see that the lines on the new beam creep higher. And one day, if/when the time comes to move on from this, our new “home”, I hope that we have become so happy and immersed here, that I have to once again make myself forget what leaving really is in order to go.

For now though, I take comfort in knowing just how truly blessed I have been to have had something that made saying goodbye so hard to do.