Unpacking An Attitude

Guess what I did part of this weekend?

Unpacked. And it fucked me off for the first little while as I wailed from my soapbox about how awful it was blah, blah, blah.

Then I gave my head a shake, determined to view it in a positive light. Beer helped. It made the whole task feel a bit like moving into a new apartment in university minus the pompasan chair and bong.

I tried to get excited by the fact that I actually can live without the collection of kitchen gadgets that have roosted in my drawers for years. Before, I was loathe to throw anything away convinced that SOMEWHERE down the road, I would once again need that gizmo from the Pampered Chef® that made sealed, crustless peanut butter and jelly pockets, which I had used EVERY meal with abandon while Olivia went through her finicky stage. But when you are defeated, slightly hacked off and sliding towards apathy, it is easy to toss away the superfluous.

I was forced to ask myself questions like:

**Do I really need the steamer that my granola-eating, tree-hugging, self-help-reading, Birkenstock-wearing mum bought for me years ago? It takes an hour to soften carrots, whistles "hee-hee-hee" like a woman in labour and is impossible to clean. I decided that it would be more at home in the rubbish bin, nestled beside the juicer, than back in my cupboard.

**What about my collection of cheap Wal-Mart bud vases? Back when I was a single parent, I went through this Helen Reddy, "I Am Woman" phase where I had the unmedicated notion to be good to myself by buying fresh flowers for my home each week.

Lots and lots and lots of them. I decided that they didn't need unpacking and thus began the theme of the weekend:

Purge, cleanse and repair.

I unpacked some boxes and packed others with items that would go to the local shelter. Books, toys, dishes and linens filled my car and when I dropped everything off, I felt lighter. I took the opportunity to organize closets and tackle one of my junk drawers. We cleaned the garage out. Dallas pruned, weeded and mulched the front flower bed. We went to Lowes and purchased everything that we needed to scrape, prime and paint our front door. We bought a power washer. It was remarkably satisfying work.

Last week, once the dust settled from our Florida trip and after we'd made the decision not to move, there was a slow but perceptible shift in our attitude. Dallas and I share a wanderlust gene and the prospect of moving to Florida tapped into that primal need for change and adventure that we seem to require along with food, water and Harley Davidson. But the truth was that neither of us really wanted to make the move and we had suppressed those feelings since April because we really felt that relocating was the responsible thing to do for our family. Once things changed, we began to look at our life with new eyes.

Instead of focusing on the peeling paint in the bathrooms or the broken blinds in Dylan's room, we walk into our house grateful for the layout, the space and the reasonable mortgage payment. All of those repair and maintenance tasks that were good enough to complete for new tenants but on the back burner for us have been placed on the immediate "to do" list. We were behaving like renters in our own home. Not anymore.

We drive the roads of Northwest Arkansas marveling at how gorgeous the scenery is and how light the traffic. Manchild spent the day with us yesterday and the luxury of remaining near him eased all of the paralyzing fears that we had been choking on for the last couple of months. And our friends. My god, we would have missed them. I can't express how happy I am that our communication will be more than emails and Christmas cards.

The events of the last couple of weeks while jarring, have served to clarify exactly what is important to us and therein lies the silver lining to the whole debacle. Our life, as it exists right this second, is pretty damn great.

Recalculating

I've figured out how to do this private blog thing.

If you are interested in reading, shoot me a note with your email address.

It's like being a kid again with my diary, except now, the diary talks back.

Also, just a short note to tell you that one of my new favourite things is a Garmin GPS thingy. When we were in Florida, we included one in our car rental and it is the most fabulous thing ever invented.

My sister cousin had one with her when we holidayed in March but it seemed just the slightest bit complicated (like trying to learn a Mac after being conditioned on a PC) and I shied away from it. Now, I think everyone ought to have one. I especially loved the option to change language and even accent. I browsed the list and didn't find a New Zealand dialect so we had to settle for an Aussie. We chose a female because we figured a male would get lost. (kidding)

Anyway, once she started to talk (and the strange thing is that the machine quickly feels like a real person), Dallas cringed and said that she was a British person putting on an Australian accent and that she was doing a poor job. I nearly wet my pants.

A few times, we took different routes rather than the one she had laid out and we actually sensed Garmin lady's stress as she intoned, "Recalculating. Recalculating RECALCULATING!" over and over again. We cried laughing a few times. Because we are weird like that.

Since we are no longer moving to Florida, there is probably no need for us to get a Garmin because here in sleepy Bentonville, Arkansas, we don't have much of an opportunity to get lost. Although, I must admit that one chicken farm looks just the same as the next.

Best Not Air The Dirty Laundry

I know that I left you guys hanging and I apologize. It's taken me a few days to pull my head from my arse end. I promise an update but here's the problem. My job is involved and I'm pretty sure that being a big, public bloggy mouth is ill advised. But, I am in desperate need of some post therapy so I think I'm going to create another blog and make it private place to purge my soul.

Of course, you are invited. I'm not sure how it all works but as soon as I figure it out, I'll get back to you.

Thanks for the support. You guys rock.

Whoa There Nelly!

Tomorrow, Dallas and I fly to Florida to secure housing and enroll the kids in school.

Or so I thought.

We are most definitely getting on a plane tomorrow but now, we aren't entirely sure what we are going to accomplish. Late yesterday afternoon, my boss walked into my office, shut the door and told me not to sign any lease agreements until he'd given me the okay to do so.

Um...pardon?

Since April, I have spent nearly every spare waking moment researching neighbourhoods, schools, community amenities and crime stats. I can rattle off zip codes for A rated school zones. We have appointments to see houses every hour on the hour beginning at 2pm tomorrow and ending at 8pm. My home is up for rent. I've had prospective tenants walking through with critical eyes, tight wallets and outlandish reasons for crappy credit reports. We've weeded the front flower bed and begun the painful process of sorting, saving and tossing the possessions that accessorize our life. I've had heated negotiations with my ex husband about visitation and the logistics of moving two young children across the country. AND, not for nothing but I spent a good portion of time last weekend doing this:


So, after my boss left my office yesterday asking us to hold on while the company analyzed a few details, I was stunned. It took quite a bit for us to get to the point where we embraced the idea of moving to Florida. We really felt like we needed to support that corporate decision. Now, I'm not sure what to think. Clearly, a move across the country takes planning and even though we are just four people in a company with many employees, the directive to "hold on" ROCKED OUR WORLD.

I didn't tell my boss that the Florida rental market is on fire and that we don't have the luxury of waiting for a few weeks once we've found something we like. I didn't tell him that my son is emotionally fragile right now and in desperate need of a structured, settled environment. I didn't tell him that it took me four years to find a stylist to do my hair and that the prospect of finding someone new causes me to break out in hives. I didn't tell him that my mother switched her flights for this Christmas so that she now flies into Florida. Nope, I didn't open my mouth with a single objection. Instead, I left work, picked up my children and got a bucket of KFC to assuage my husband when I broke the news.

He still came unhinged.

Tomorrow, bright and early, we board our flight to the East Coast. We still plan to keep our appointments and visit the schools that we had listed. We still plan to do some rush hour driving to get a feel for our commute. We will follow through with the plan to collect rental applications and make nice with the natives. In the best case scenario, the trip will serve its original purpose and things will progress as we had expected them to. In the worst case, Dallas and I did some spring cleaning, pared our life and got an all expense paid mini vacation to Florida.

And when I look at it that way, I can manage. For now.

Preparing for THE MOVE

This weekend, I took a couple of baby steps towards tackling the loathsome chore of packing up our house in preparation for THE MOVE.

I actually allowed myself to think about it for more than thirty seconds AND I did not end up in a fetal curl on the floor of my closet calling my shoes by their pet names. No siree. I was on a mission. As I cleaned the house on Saturday, I made mental notes about what needed to be done to our home to make it rent ready.

-Paint. Jesus, I hate to paint but the peeling baseboards in the bathrooms are the only thing I see these days. They mock me. And our front door is a mess. And the trim on the back door needs some work. But I can do this. I am the Google queen and I will learn how to fix these small issues. (insert dramatic music score here for effect) Really, how hard could it be? Right? I know. I'm slightly concerned.

-Carpet. What I would really like to do is rip the bloody carpet up, set it on fire and rejoice over its synthetic ashes. But that isn't really practical or environmentally friendly so I'll have to settle for getting it steam cleaned. The question is when. The obvious answer is to wait until the furniture has been moved out of the house but that would mean that we would have to stay behind a day or so and COORDINATE. Where will I store the children? The cats? See the dilemma?

And speaking of cats, how exactly does one move them across the country? It's not like you can put a leash on them and let them out at the rest stops along the interstate. I just know that transporting them will involve some sort of portable litter box and rubber gloves. I shudder.

I guess the final hurdle to overcome is finding a nice family to rent our house. I'm guessing that this will be the hardest thing for me. This is the first home that I owned all by myself. My name is the only one on the deed. This brick and mortar once represented freedom and independence to me and it was an affirmation that I could stand quite nicely on my own two feet which was something I had questioned most of my adult life. My soul healed in this house.

The feelings that I had the day that I closed escrow have since faded and been tucked away into that recovery cubbyhole in my brain. Our house, now filled with the love and security of a great marriage, is no longer my singular place for respite. It has shuffled down my totem pole of priorities to become merely an asset. I'm sure though, that when I see it framed in the rear view mirror as we pull out of the driveway for the last time, I will catch a glimpse of that broken and lonely single parent who moved in there four years ago.

And she will be waving good bye.

A Gem in Disguise

Wow! It sure feels like Monday.

The weekend passed by in a blur of activity and I am positive that between now and THE BIG MOVE, the frenetic pace will become uncomfortably familiar to Dallas and me.

See, the scary thing about settling in a new place (is it just me or does the word "settle" automatically conjure up images of covered wagons and bonnets?) is that there is no guarantee that you'll get it right the first time.

Gone are the days when the bulk of my belongings could fit into a backpack. Back then, I could relocate without a second thought. When I first decided to leave Canada for San Diego, I was positively delirious with anticipation. I sold everything I owned, which wasn't much and committed fully to the idea of never having to experience a Canadian winter again. I could not wait to get on the plane.

At the time, I was working as a manager in a popular chain restaurant. One of my regular customers was this cranky, old guy who would stroll in most evenings for a few pints of draught and some hot wings before making his way home. The staff hated him. He was a big man with giant hands, a shock of white hair and fleshy features. He was bigoted, opinionated, obnoxious, demanding and generally a pain in the arse. I loved him.

Sometimes, I'd sit with him and get his advice on everything from dating (frat boys are bad news) to finances (pay yourself first). He'd lost his wife and his only child in a house fire years earlier and never really recovered. We had an odd friendship I suppose, but it worked. He was a surrogate grandfather to me and my life was richer for knowing him. When I bought my ticket to sunny California, telling him was the only thing that I dreaded about the move.

"You'll be back," he said, as if I would fail, somehow.

"No, I won't." I replied and in that moment, our relationship changed.

For the next couple of weeks, he was distant and emotionally withdrawn. The waves of disapproval that rolled off of him were palpable.

I questioned my decision to go.

Was I being impulsive? Should I stay? How would I support myself in the US? But California spoke to me and the desire to go outweighed every rational objection that I could muster.

On my last day at work, there was a mini going away party in my honour. My friend ambled in near the end of it and parked himself at the bar. He motioned for me to sit next to him, which I accepted, grateful for the apparent thaw in his attitude. We chatted for a bit about hockey and the weather.

"I bet you'll really enjoy all that hot weather in Cal-e-forn-eye-ay," he said. I was surprised.

"Yeah, I think so." I said. I felt the beginnings of a small lump forming in my throat.

He just nodded, finished his beer and called for his tab. I sat quietly beside him unsure of what to say next. He paid his bill, stood up, and put on his jacket. As he tucked his stool under the bar, he handed me an envelope. Then he hugged me, which he had never done before.

"Good luck," he said and left. I went into the staff bathroom and cried myself stupid.

When I opened the envelope, there was a corny going away card upon which he had written, "You'll do good but if you get homesick, use this to buy yourself a ticket home."

Inside were four, crisp, new, one hundred dollar bills.

It took me about eighteen months to deposit the money into my bank account in La Mesa. It took that long for me to exhale and accept my new life.

I never saw or spoke to my friend again. Email and mobile phones were non existent back then and even if they were, I'm not sure he would have divulged that information. I didn't even know his last name. If I could talk to him now, I'd tell him that part of the reason that things worked for me in the US is because I operated with the knowledge that if they didn't, I had a four hundred dollar safety net.

Thank you Frank.

The Sunshine State

Where the heck have I been?

I know how annoying it is to see a lack of fresh material day after day and I apologize. My work life has been out of control lately and in this economic environment, I am very fortunate that my cup runneth over.

For the last couple of weeks, my time has been divided between two enormous projects. The first one had me researching and writing the business plan that proposed the formation of a new company. The other involved the debut of a product line that has been in development for close to two years. Next month, I will stand by my client as his innovation is introduced to the world retail market. It's all very exciting. And exhausting.

I was crazy busy but managing well until last Thursday when my boss and the chairman of the company dropped the F bomb.

The corporate home office is relocating to Florida.

And I was invited to make the move.

After hearing that news, I went from being busy to being completely overwhelmed. What about the kids? And our ex spouses? And our houses? And our friends? And my husband's job? And that income? And...

We live in Bentonville, Arkansas which is a surprisingly modern small town with all of the amenities and a great regional airport thanks to the fact that three large companies are headquartered in this region. The schools are great, the traffic manageable and the weather gives us four distinct but moderate seasons. Some of the best Harley riding in the US can be found in this area. For a big city girl, I've become remarkably attached to this town. I've been here for ten years and it's a wonderful place to raise children.

When Dallas was told, he was equally stunned and the two of us spent most of this last weekend trying to assess the situation. We scoured the internet for information on housing costs, schools, taxes, amenities, culture and all those things that grown ups consider when weighing a decision like this. We sought the advice of parents, friends and colleagues. We drew up pro/con lists. We LABOURED over this decision.

Yesterday, I spoke with one of my colleagues in Florida and after our conversation, the answer became crystal clear to me. I stepped outside, called Dallas and explained how I felt.

Together, we came to a conclusion.

In early August, just after the celebration of our first wedding anniversary, Dallas, Olivia, Dylan, manchild and I will become Florida's newest residents.

Alligators, mosquitos and hurricanes, be damned.