This is so depressing.

My kids are asleep in a house full of the boxes of all our things.  I'm battling with feeling sadness and feeling detached from all of this.  I was thinking earlier that the last time we did a move, I did something similar.  My mind's way of coping is apparently to pretend this is all normal, but it compartmentalizes these moments.  For instance, I vividly remember walking through our house in Pennsylvania when it looked like this and feeling the same way.  Like I'm sectioning off the memories of my life by states I've lived in and things I've done in each.  Lots of uncomfortable encounters in Louisiana (really bad job...then a really good job which only lasted a few months but almost made up for how bad the first job was), baby in Pennsylvania, baby in Arizona ...wonder how I'll categorize Colorado (bc for sure no more babies).  I really want to publish a book while I'm 33 (I turn 33 on 3/3 so obviously I'm a fan of the number 3)...that would absolutely be the highlight of our next state if by some miracle it happens. 

I'm drinking wine out of a kid's cup from Chili's right now because literally everything I didn't set aside today is packed in boxes.  I was proud of myself for remembering a cup for my daughter for milk and water (she's got it in her room now but I almost resorted to borrowing it tonight for my mommy beverage...I'd've cleaned it and returned it before my own bedtime...probably). 

In the past few weeks I've:

• Celebrated a major holiday without my spouse (Thanksgiving...it was rough...just me and my kiddos...and I'm no cook but that dinner was damn good)
• Made over 50 pieces of jewelry and shipped the last 8 packages out today...it was a lucrative holiday season for my jewelry shop and at least a few of the orders were extremely emotional for me...I make personalized items (handwritten keychains, baby footprints, etc.) so I often have sales for memorial jewelry and one in particular had me crying pretty major tears as I packaged it up
• Worked a full time job (2 hours each night and 6 hours each day...those were the least exhausting 6 hours of my days for the past several weeks...I love my job and my coworkers and will miss them terribly)
• Cleaned out our house of all garbage and junk we didn't want moved to CO (well...most of it)
• Bathed and fed my children regularly (it deserves recognition)
• Exercised regularly (highlight of most days....aside seriously from picking up my kids from school every day...that makes my heart smile every time)
• Worked a conference with my children over a weekend in Phoenix
• Cancelled a few utilities here (hubby helped with this)
• Set up utilities in CO
• Survived at least 5 major mental breakdowns
• Oh...and moved a treadmill out of my house single handedly....then me and my awesomely strong friend from work lifted it onto the back of her truck WITHOUT the hatch down...because we're awesome....she's driving up with me to Colorado and I seriously love her...I could write a full post on her

So, I'm not trying to display how amazingly badass I am...I am just reminding a future version of myself that I can handle a hell of a lot.

I really, really, really, do not want to publish this post and go back to my reality...it is much easier to avoid than face.  I just want to write endlessly about how I feel than actually feel it.  It takes me a step away from it all.  I'll just keep writing then.  Right after I pour myself another Chili's cup of wine.

I'll write until I should go to bed...and then maybe I'll watch some Netflix on my phone.  I'm obsessed with Criminal Minds right now. 

There's so much to clean in this house...only floors and walls and sinks but there are sooo many floors and walls and sinks.  Once the movers load a room I plan to vacuum it and clean the walls (dog hair on white walls/molding is gross)...I'm hoping to get done when they do.  I have a hair cut scheduled tomorrow for 3:30 and I only have tomorrow and a couple of hours Wednesday morning to finish earning our deposit back on this house.  We close on a house in Colorado a week from tomorrow. 

One hellish week.  Thursday morning (early, early, morning) we fly to Atlanta, rent a car, drive almost 2 hours to Alabama and spend one night there for my husband's graduation from OTS...then drive (the day after we get there) back to Atlanta, fly back to Phoenix, pick up our dog, then get up early the next morning for 2 loooong days of driving to Colorado.  I know I'll be exhausted so I can't even imagine how my kids will handle it.  My older daughter will stay with her father and drive to Colorado with him...which should be fun for her. 

So one more week of this and we'll all be together again and for better or worse, we'll start the next chapter in another state.  I'm so tired...

Everything's changing

My husband leaves for OTS (Office Training School) in 5 days.  I'll be single parenting for 2 months before I see him again and I'm far from ready for all of the changes this will bring.  Not to mention moving to another state when he gets finished.  I could have gone to Barnes n Noble this afternoon during naptime, and maybe I should have, but I decided to stay home, sit in our office, and mimic my new weekend afternoon naptime routine.  This way it won't be such a foreign thing next week when I can no longer leave the house while the kids are asleep.

I can't really put into words how I'm feeling right now about all of this...it's hard to think of anything else though.  It makes me want to cry, while at the same time look forward to the ability to have some time to myself; makes me sad to leave Arizona and the friends I've made here, while at the same time I'm looking forward to Colorado Springs.

I'm honestly close to having a nervous breakdown.  Really, I feel like I might pass out at least once a day (not joking...I'm actually slightly concerned about this on a medical level, but it happened when we were leaving PA too, so I'm chalking it up to stress).

My amazing job is being so flexible with me...they've offered to give me irregular hours for the next two months so I don't have to worry about racing to and from work to make it to the daycare on time.  I'll be going in from 10-3:30 Monday through Friday (I used to work from home on Mondays...this is going to be the compromise for having me in every day)...then spend a couple of hours each evening working at home after the kids go to bed.  This arrangement made me want to cry happy tears when I learned about it on Friday.

So regardless of all of the reasons I'm stressing about this transition, I'm confident we'll get through it fine.  I've got supportive friends at work, kids that are both (usually) well behaved (just kidding, the older daughter is usually doing the opposite of what I ask of her...but with just me here, we might be able to get into a routine where she isn't getting herself in trouble most of the time...I hope), wine, books I can read, movies I can watch.  Gotta cook for the family...that's gonna be no fun...but everything I'm worrying about...everything that's making it hard to catch my breath...it's all minor compared to what some people have to manage on their own.  I'm really just being a baby about all of it.

I guess I never anticipated how much harder each of these moves is going to get.  I used to look forward to them.  In Louisiana, when Steve went to train for this recruiting job for 6 weeks, I was happier than maybe any time of my life (no offense, husband).  Up until then, I'd never lived by myself before...so 6 weeks of my own apartment while living in a city was incredible.  I'm not the type to get bored with too much time on my hands...so that's when I started making jewelry, I read about a dozen books, watched any movie I felt like watching, went out with friends for dinner and drinks (the one thing that'll be almost impossible this time around...babysitters are expensive), and my house always looked the same when I came home from work as it looked when I left it in the morning.  It was the most liberating 6 weeks of my life.  Then we moved to PA and I had a baby.  So moving out here was not easy, but we did it together.  This time, doing so much of this by myself while taking care of two daughters and a dog...it's all so much more intimidating.

I could go on and on about all of this though (as you can see), and that's something I'd rather not do right now.  I'll go read now...and finish up a couple of jewelry orders.

Some thoughts...

I'm a huge overthinker when it comes to astronomy and our world and the universe and the fact that we exist on a random planet in an enormous galaxy that exists in an incomprehensibly enormous universe with an astronomically incomprehensible amount of space and other galaxies and other stars and other planets.  So why aren't we more appreciative of what we have?  We have an earth that is capable of shielding us from deadly waves of radiation...a planet that gives us the perfect amount of atmosphere and gravity and distance from the closest star.  And instead of literally worshiping the ground we walk on, we give all the credit to some unknown and possibly (probably, in my opinion) nonexistent higher power.  When the higher power has been under our feet the entire time.  

Just hear me  out...If it weren't for this earth, we wouldn't be breathing, we wouldn't be loving, we wouldn't be breeding or interacting, we wouldn't be intelligent, we wouldn't exist.  Yet we keep searching for answers...what more do we have questions for?  

Why we are here?  Because this planet sustained life.  Why do we need more answers than that?  This planet is not one in a million, it's one in probably trillions that can do what it does.  What if no higher power was responsible?  That it was incredible fortune for us to have thrived in a place that could sustain us?  And here we all are, expecting something more to the question.  Expecting something that will forgive us for everything we do wrong.  But that's just human nature, right?  Feeling like we should get something for nothing.  Praying for forgiveness when we knew better in the first place.

And here I am, typing on a plastic keyboard that is probably non-biodegradable, sitting on my couch that, if burned, would probably emit horrible toxins into the atmosphere, drinking water from a plastic cup, wasting resources and leaving an embarrassingly large footprint on this planet that provides me with love, empathy, happiness, humor, opinions, entertainment, beauty, and literally everything.  

Native Americans had the right idea, is all I'm saying.  This planet...Earth...this amazingly underappreciated reason for life...is something we all take for granted and it hit me tonight that it's probably the answer to every question about the meaning of life.  How could we all be so blind?  

Why does there have to be an answer past the science of what made this planet sustain life?  There isn't one.  It's like asking why 2+2=4...it just is....it's plainly obvious.  We should all be literally worshiping this ground that we walk on, but instead, we take it for granted and excuse our treatment of it.  And it's inexcusable.   

A Birthday

I'm turning 32 in less than a week.  I can't lie...I sort of hate birthdays now.  It's just a reminder that I haven't accomplished many of the things I really really want to accomplish with my time.  Obviously I'm thrilled with the fact that I have a beautiful set of daughters and a happy life and a job and no real true worries.  But when I'm being selfish about the things I want to say I've done with my life, I want a few things on that list to show true accomplishments that reflect something I'm capable of with my own abilities.  The jewelry is fun and I'm proud of it but it's not cutting it.  I want to make time to finish editing one of the projects I've written and I want to be able to focus on getting one of them sold.  But there's never any time.

Everything is taking all of my time.  Two kids (love them dearly, yes, of course), work (takes way way way too much of it), jewelry, exercise (when I spare time for it)...by the time I have done everything I'm obligated to do either with work, family, jewelry, cleaning, etc. I have about an hour of free and open time to do with what I choose.  And unlike that awesome month back in November, I'm letting that hour go toward TV or mindlessly looking online.  And then, before I know it, it's time to go to bed.

I guess I could start staying up late again but I really need the sleep now that everyone in my house keeps getting sick and work is requiring more of my attention.  Seriously...just one hour...if that...per day.  That's it.  And so now I look at people without children, or the version of me before children, and I think...damn, must be nice.  Again...I'm not complaining about children at all, obviously...but maybe Abby could cry a little less when I walk out of the room to pee.  And maybe Jane could not spend an hour every night repeatedly being told to go to bed.  Then maybe the time I spend with them would be a little less stressful and the time I end up with at the end of the day would be a little more productive.

Wishful thinking.