073105 - Move
As of today, the lady and I now have nine days before we leave for Albuquerque. I have five days of work left; she has four. We're starting to look at the world around us with the thought of "I'll be seeing this just a few more times, and then I'll probably never see it again." We're soaking up the trees and the grass and the flowers before we move to the desert.
But we're okay with that. The more we think about it, the happier we are that we're leaving. I've said before that Indiana is more of a way-station that a home: people are generally either born here and stay their whole lives, or move here with the intention of leaving. The lady and I are not natives, and some escape plan has always been in the back of our minds. We have a few friends and a bare amount of family here, but we're tired of everyone else - we're glad to be on the way out.
...Looking around the living room, even though we're starting to box things up, our home is somehow getting messier in the process. We're finally sorting through papers and other things that we never got around to when we first moved in here, and the approach to all of that seems to be the "pile" method. With the packing at least, I'll be glad once we finally get there and get settled.
In other respects, life is finally starting to normalize after my father's death. The condolences are starting to peter out, and the reality of the world is finally starting to take emotional root. It's odd, though - my family's world right now is playing out like a montage out of some cheesy drama: the lady and I, sorting through our things as we prepare to start the next stage of our lives, while my mother goes through my father's things as she begins to learn how to live without him. (Her transition has been the most surprising to the lady and I. I've always known her as being a fairly quiet and demure person, at least in comparison to my father's big, charismatic personality. Since he's been gone, though, we're starting to see the sharp, powerful, insightful side of her personality come out more fully - and she's turning out to be a much more interesting person than I ever realized. A part of me wishes that we could stay around a bit longer to get to know this new mother - but I'm sure we'll be getting to know her for years to come.)
In all of this, the beginnings of our new life are starting to appear. The lady has mandated at least three weeks' notice if anyone intends to stay with us, and our calendar is already starting to fill up. I'm starting to get my schedule arranged with the school, and the lady has been checking the local classifieds regularly to get an idea of the job market. There's a lot of changes for us, but we think they're all for the better. Even if school work turns out to be a mule for me, our lives will at least be better with the lady working more standard hours at a job she doesn't loathe. ABQ means new places, new people, new opportunities...and we have nine days to sort through our old lives and decide what we want to take with us. It's an exciting time for us.