big enough

The TV networks announced their fall lineups this week. Dan's show got cancelled. Which is sad, because it was an extremely likeable show. But honestly? I'm relieved. Can you imagine walking away from a guaranteed job, a reliable gig with people you've become comfortable around, for… well… the great unknown? No sure thing, this move. No guarantees at all. Just contacts, connections, friendship, and a sense of rightness. And so we go. I told Damian that's it's all a huge adventure. I meant the house sale, the move, the drive across country. But really, it extends way beyond that, doesn’t it? New town, new school, new life, new weather pattern, new definition of self and work and everything, almost.

I think now about Toronto, about how serious we felt this past winter, how it felt like a tangible, appealing option. I feel some regret, admittedly. I still think this country's current government is freaky-scary and I worry how far things will go before the hoped-for, longed-for shift back to the middle, back to some semblance of sanity. But this move to New Jersey, which really means New York, which means a return home, even this move, which has so much comfort built into it (an immediate and rich social life! familiar places all around us!), even this feels like diving into a cloud with our eyes closed, the sensation imaginable but unknowable, nothing to grip onto, nothing to do but trust that we'll float and not fall, that the cloud, balloon-like, will buoy us up. And with this transition we're not just moving away from a city that hasn't ever jelled for us but also moving toward a place and people that do.

If we'd gone through with the Canadian immigration paperwork, how would that have felt two months before the big move? Much, much harder than this, I think. Toronto sounds like a very pleasant city and maybe we would have adapted, found a social circle, found work, found a good school for Damian. Maybe. But it would have meant starting over in the most elemental way. Ground level. Build a life. Hard in your forties. Doable but hard. And to choose it just because we want to leave a city and a country? I'm not sure that's enough, at least not for me. I want to go to, not just away from.

I think some people have a sense of adventure built into their DNA, they wake up as infants, and as their eyes learn to focus they learn to crave change and newness, and as a corollary, they seem to know how to build worlds around them wherever they go. My cousin has more friends in LA than I do, I think, and he's only been here half a dozen times. I know I'm capable of making friends; at certain points in my life it's happened easily, though maybe that was because I was in the right place for me, or maybe because I felt comfortable with myself (though perhaps these are two ways of saying the same thing). But I find that I don’t want that big an unknown. I want my adventure life-sized, manageable, imaginable. This is huge enough, to uproot my family like this with no immediate jobs on the horizon, no tangible reason except that it's what we want and maybe need to do for ourselves, our careers and our son. This is huge enough, and it comes complete with a social safety net, friends to support us through our inevitable panic attacks, even family nearby. This is huge enough, and anything that makes it feel saner and more secure is a good thing.

So I'm sorry that Dan's show got cancelled, but in a way, selfishly, I'm not. I wish everyone luck finding jobs on quality shows easily and quickly. And I wish us luck in our metamorphosis into… whatever happens to someone who hitches a ride on a cloud.