Packing Up

I like being unemployed, for a few weeks anyway. I've actually been able to relax and tap into a part of myself I haven't in a long while. I read three books, one of which was a novel. I baked batches of chocolate chip cookies and gave some to the neighbors. A couple evenings later, I was walking past and they offered me ribs fresh from the grill.

I love sharing food with people. It makes me uncannily happy.

I've gotten to be in the kitchen a lot more than usual, whether it's baking a pie from the early apples we picked, or chopping up onions for mom and crying my eyes out. I was willing to chop them because it was for Mexican food. Pretty soon, all I'll be eating is Italian and though that is certainly no sacrifice, I know I'll crave Mexican while I'm over there. So Mom has been making it for me a lot. (Note: I can tell you this, if I were going to Mexico, Mom would be making me Italian all the time.)

The other thing I've done is spend a lot of time with Misha and Sanna. It happened almost by accident, but every day we'd end up going for long walks. We'd pack up art supplies sometimes and walk around the lake until we were at the extreme south end and paint pictures looking north. Other times I'd just stuff money in Sanna's pockets (my running shorts didn't have any) and we'd end our walk at the bakery and get coffee and juice (at the end of a long, hot walk you are surprisingly not hungry). Once, we stopped to play in a fire hydrant that was being flushed. The man in charge of it came by and gave Sanna and Misha a lesson about why he was doing it and how to shut it off (I learned a lot too because where I come from all they have is the neighbor's pond). He also tried to recruit us all into the fire department, mumbling something about there always being room for women on the force.

I'm very glad we three sisters hung out so much. Leaving them is honestly the hardest part of leaving because they are young enough that they'll have changed by the time I get back, even if it's just three months.

I tell you, three months is hard to pack for. This time around, I'm not making the rookie mistake of waiting until the night before to pack. Of course, I really had no choice. Due to the family moving to the city rental from the town rental, and the off-chance that our country house might sell while I'm gone, I've had to pack all of my earthly possessions into boxes or my suitcases for the trip. Who knows how long the boxed up stuff will have to stay in the boxes. I have a feeling it'll be a while. Of course, that makes one wonder, why can't one just get rid of it all if one doesn't need it for years? My justification at the moment is, first, I'm a emotional human being. Some of the stuff that I own is hard to deal with and Mom actually said she'd handle it. I'm that crippled. Second, I have some pretty darn quality toys, like an awesome maple table and chairs custom made by a local woodworker for my American Girls dolls (yup—plural); a stethoscope that works in a doctor's kit with my name on it; a Chinese bitty baby that is sooo cute and tided me over until I got my real Chinese baby sister; and of course a ton of good books.

Even though packing has been exhausting, now that it's done I feel a lot better. I'm one of those people who likes things to be organized so the past few weeks of organizing and getting things on many fronts jammed up and jelly tight has been very fulfilling. I feel a couple chapters of my life closing, a couple new ones opening.

It's all a bit surreal, whether going to Italy or doing college or making plans about the future—plans that don't include the stethoscope, like I thought they would as a kid. Plans that don't include, like I thought as a teen, unpacking my boxes right away because I have my own little girls to play with my dolls. Plans that aren't centered strictly on having a husband to cook favorite foods for. Plans where my imagination doesn't dictate what I write, but real life.

Sometimes I wish life had gone the way I wanted, originally, where I get married young and have a lot of kids and write books and win first place in the state fair for my apple pie. Huh.

It sounds like something from a boring book.

That's partly why what I wanted changed. Well, let's be honest, it changed because I didn't find a husband when I was 18. But it also changed because, like I've said before, I want to live a story worth telling about. And, I want to have a bigger family than my own nuclear family. I want to have more kids than my kids.

Tonight when I was out for a walk by myself down some side streets, for the first time I had a boy who was not more than 10 years old hit on me (if that's a really common occurrence and it's just the first time I've experienced it I am humiliated by my naiveté. Most of this post, actually, could be chalked up to naiveté and having to discover how life works you and you work life and the struggle to know who God is in the midst of it). For the merciful record, he didn't do or say anything perverted, but he went on and on, following me... it destroyed me inside, even though he's probably fine, even though it was probably his older brother egging him on. He's just a little kid, and probably has no clue. But still, he's a little kid, and little kids crush my heart. Anything that is out of balance crushes my heart. WHICH IS A PROBLEM. But I'll learn to work with it, to channel it into the energy that gets me where I want to be—

Which is my own family whenever, write books whenever, win an award for my baked goods whenever and in the mean time and in between-time save the world ;). For now, I have a boarding pass to print.