Home and Family Digest: The sun sets and the sun rises

My morning view.

My sister recently mentioned that every 20 months her career goes through an upheaval: new opportunities, inter-state moves, negotiations, lots of soul searching, etc. I thought, "Huh. That's interesting."

And then it hit me: I'm on the precipice of one of the greatest upheavals of my life. Bigger than moving away to a new state where I knew no one. Bigger than being jobless for 18 months. Bigger than weddings and graduations and new jobs. My life as I know it is irrevocably changing forever in a matter of weeks. Never to go back. Never to be the same. Never to be duplicated. It feels as big as birth or as emotional as death.

Yesterday I toured the floorplan of the new apartment I'm leasing in the beginning of December. Something about its plain-ness, its beige-ness, really hit me in the gut. The home that I've immersed myself in for the last four-and-a-half years is about to be a thing of the past. The wall colors, the drawer-pulls, the painstakingly chosen and placed decor are all going to be crumpled up into boxes and spit out into a beige, two-bedroom apartment with crown molding.

I've never felt very emotional about this house before now. Anthony and I always said it wasn't our Forever Home. It needed too many upgrades and re-designs to feel like our last home together, but here I am, three weeks away from walking away from it forever and I feel like I'm about to saw off my arm.

I paced the tiles of this house for hours while in labor. I brought my baby home here and have watched him blossom in its strange nooks and crannies. Anthony and I felt safe here, home here. Our friends have always loved it here and remark on its welcoming energy.

I've gotten to know wonderful people who live in the neighborhood who are always game to drink margaritas with me and hang out under my looming oak tree in the sweltering Texas heat, shootin' the shit, letting our children toddle around together and slowly, gently getting to know one another. Hollis romps in the front yard as I lounge in a lawn chair.

Of course, the house is a symbol only. It's just a place, a thing. The real issue here is change, upheaval. It's here. Dark, massive, and brooding, pounding on my door. I cannot ignore it any longer. Like my Feelings, Change will not be put off. I must answer its call.

When things happen for me they tend to happen all at once. Much like when Dad was dying and a million massive life events were happening simultaneously, my life today is also in tumult beyond just the house and its reasons for abandoning it.

I have a major career exam to take and pass; I must find a job; I must re-learn how to support myself; I must separate from Hollis to earn a living; I must find a place for Hollis to be taken care of while I'm away.

Only yesterday did any of this creep into my lizard brain. I've essentially been pretending my own life isn't happening to me. How convenient, right??

I've told Hollis that he and I are moving into a new apartment together and that Daddy is moving into the house. He says, "Ooh, nice! We get to have a new pawpawtment, Mommy?"

And I say, "Yes, honey. It will be our new home."

"Oh. Ok, Mommy. That's vewy nice," he chirps back.

Early this morning, before dawn, I heard Hollis' door crack open and his little feet pound down the hall to my door. "Mommy?" he calls out. "Awe you in hewe?"

"Yes, baby," I croak from deep under piles of covers. I think I slept 4 hours last night; I kept waking up expecting something out of my reach. Sleep was fitful, my dreams intense, my body kinked with tension.

He climbs up into bed with me and snuggles into the down pillows and comforter. Soon he was softly purring through his nose and I drifted off to a deep blue place of peace and ease -- like the icy calm you see in the documentaries of sea life beneath colossal glaciers. A place where I didn't worry, I didn't orchestrate, I didn't do anything except just be. I floated in this place of calm, cool navy and azure for an hour. It lapped at my skin and slipped over my limbs languidly.

Then Hollis awakens, pats me, and asks, "Where's Daddy?? Where my Daddy is?"

I blinked through the soft gray light oozing into the room. "Mommy and Daddy don't live together anymore, baby." -- God, I hate telling him that -- "Do you miss him?"

"Uh huh," he affirms.

"I miss him, too."

I feel as though I am taking a deep breath before a dive. I will be digging down into myself to get through the next several weeks. Yet, by far the coolest thing about all of this is that I know without a shadow of a doubt that I will get through it and land on my feet. I can't see how it won't happen. It's just what I do: I land on my feet.

Yesterday Hollis and I were driving to the store for firewood at dusk and he mentioned how beautiful he thought the pink and blue of the sky was. "What is that, Mommy?" he wonders.

"When the sun goes down we call it a sunset; it lights up the sky in the west."

"Oh."

"And when the sun comes up in the east, we call it a sunrise."

"Sunwise," he parrots.

"Yes, sunrise," I say.

Indeed. A sunrise on a new life and a new me. A sunrise restarts the clock and resets the heart. A sunrise is hope. A sunrise is unavoidable.

I welcome the sunrise.