A little life lesson: Be flexible. It's pretty much the only way you can handle the rollercoaster without falling off or at least ending up with a bad case of whiplash.
Remember that timetable of our move? History. Alternate history, turns out. Our new timetable:
June 20th. Fly to New York. Leave cats behind. Find place to live. Do other stuff. Sweat (90 and humid? Ugh.)
July 3rd. Come back to LA. Greet cats.
July 5th or 6th or so: visit Legoland (we promised) and Seaworld (why not?).
July 11th or thereabouts. Dan starts work.
(What? Oh. Yeah, well. A job. Here. For the summer. With people he knows and likes. Why not?)
The rest of July. Buy boxes. Pack. Sweat. Say goodbye to people and places here. Turn the air conditioning up. Stop sweating. Throw things out. Donate other things. Buy more boxes. Pack some more.
August 2nd. Escrow ends. Get a honking big check, deposit it. Look at each other and shake our heads in wonder.
August 3rd. Become renters in this very same house. Weird.
The rest of August. See July, only now with 50% more boxes and sweat and stress.
September. This gets a little tricky, but:
Say hi to moving van and movers. Watch nearly all our worldly goods disappear into the innards of a huge, enormous and really freaking long truck. Wave goodbye to nearly all our worldly goods.
Then: Either Damian and I kiss Daddy goodbye (if the job hasn't ended yet) and get on a plane or we all three get on that plane (if the job has in fact ended). Oh, wait, five of us. We bring the cats this time. But we leave the minivan behind, either with Dan or solo. A minivan alone in the big city, up to no good.
Get off plane. Don’t forget cats on plane. Introduce cats to Grandma and Grandpa.
A few days later: Meet honking big, freakishly long truck in New Jersey. Say hi to stuff. Also to movers. Watch stuff reappear from the depths of honking big truck. Give movers water and our undying gratitude. Unpack enough stuff to sleep that night in our new abode. And maybe eat too. Live among boxes for a week.
Damian starts school. One week. Just one. A taste of school, a sampler.
Say bye to cats. Get back on plane. Fly back west. Yes, this is strange to me too. Settle in, then leave? Why not?
Get off plane. Greet Dan if we've left him behind. Say hi to minivan. Drive for many days with many stops along the way. Arrive. Stay put. Hello New Jersey. Hello New Life.
Yes, we could ship the car. And we may well end up doing so. But we don't want to. We want to drive, to see a large swath of country, experience that visceral, tangible move. See the miles. And yes, it means pulling Damian out of school for two weeks. Listen, it's first grade. Do you think he'll remember what he learned for those two weeks of school for the rest of his life or remember a monumental cross country drive filled with life and sights and scenery and history?
Plusses to this new plan: Job. Money. Good. Plus, it looks like I may have a small writing job this summer. Freelance, from home. But far easier to do from home and not from car in the middle of the Utah desert – I mean the Colorado Rockies – I mean, where am I today? Plus, September: cooler drive than August. Also, tourist spots will be less crowded. Also, a month more time to pack. A Good Thing. But mostly, see above. Job. Money. Good.
(SP, I will write about the selling process. Next up.)
Posted by Tamar at June 15, 2005 05:24 PM | TrackBackChanging plans do keep things exciting, but it sounds like these changes are all for good reasons. Good luck with the new plan!
Posted by: Rachel at June 15, 2005 08:52 PMWow. Just...wow. And, yay for flexibility. And wow.
Posted by: Tiny Coconut at June 16, 2005 10:00 AMBoxes (moving, storage, assorted sizes) = Uline (http://www.uline.com). I think they even have a kit with assorted boxes, tape and bubble wrap.
I feel like everyone is fleeing SoCal. With good reason, but still!
Posted by: Brad at June 16, 2005 12:36 PMBoxes (moving, storage, assorted sizes) = Uline (http://www.uline.com). I think they even have a kit with assorted boxes, tape and bubble wrap.
I feel like everyone is fleeing SoCal. With good reason, but still!
Posted by: Brad at June 16, 2005 12:37 PMI read about your pending move and think back on some we made. Thing is, from Cheyenne days on we always took our house with us. But then there was our move from Abilene Texas. Would we go east to Huntsville, or west to southern California? It changed from day to day. Finally our trailer hauler told us he didn't care which way we went--just tell him the day he picked up the house.
Good luck with it all.
(And yes!!! to the cross-country drive .)
Posted by: sue at June 16, 2005 05:43 PMI agree with your reasoning for pulling Damian out of school for two weeks and I love to travel and do it all the time with my daughter. But, from what you have said about your child I think you shouldn't do it. The first month of school is when friendships will be formed. It will be much harder for him to find his place if he is out for a large part of that time. If he had been in K with some of the kids it would be different, but this is all new. Could you go in October instead?
Posted by: Elanor at June 17, 2005 10:02 AMObviously, I support whatever you do...but my two cents - I wouldn't do the one week in new school, then two weeks out, and then back to my ASD kid. It's just too confusing and disruptive socially.
I view it as a no-win situation. Either that first week goes great and he loves it, and will hate being pulled out....or, it goes lousy and he spends the two-week trip dreading going back.
If I was determined to do the cross-country trip, I wouldn't start him at all, and just wait and have him start school later. Maybe just have him drop by and meet the teacher...?
Posted by: Allison at June 20, 2005 02:35 PM