Monday, June 6, 2011

On Being Conflicted, Neurotic, and Slightly Deranged


There is a lot going on in my life right now. Have I mentioned that lately? I think I've mentioned that lately. We are selling our house, moving across the country, trying to manage all the details that those twin endeavors entail. And all the while I'm trying to keep living life. I'm working and travelling and throwing baby showers and spending time with friends and basically just trying, as hard as I can, to savor all of these moments. To take advantage of the joys and squeeze all the memories I can out of these last days and weeks before the new adventure begins in earnest. To resist letting the time fly by in a frantic, panicked frenzy of freaking out. To calmly walk through this journey and take note of all the beauty along the way. 

I'm trying. But I'm not really very good at it. I have these mutually-exclusive cravings and desires that constantly get in each other's way. Because I want everything all at once. I want the new and the old. The adventure and the familiar. I want to go and stay or at least take everything I love with me. Everything. I. Love. And my brain short-circuits and my head explodes and tears spill carelessly over all the dams that I've tried to shore up with no regard for where or why or how long. But I'm trying.

I'm so excited. I am so very excited...about our move, about our opportunities, about Keith's job, about my work-from-home situation, about exploring our town and meeting friends and finding a church and making a home. I'm so excited about all the New, New, New. I love New. New has a seductive power over me that is rivaled only by More (my other great weakness, but that's another story). New makes me feel tingly all over. It ramps up my adrenaline. It sets my mind reeling and my heart dreaming. I love all the possibility of New. I love the anything could happen of it all. New is a breath of fresh air, a burst of creative energy that sets me positively humming. I love New.

But I also, maybe for the first time, am facing a bright and beautiful New while still being really, truly, completely enamored with my Old. This last year has been so wonderful. I've loved my life. Loved it. I love the home Keith and I have created here, the friends, the community. I love the safe, day to day, routine of it all. I poured myself wholeheartedly, unreservedly into this time and this place and these relationship. Every last drip-drop of self spilled out, invested. I don't usually do that. I'm usually more self-protective than that. I'm usually more fearful. But I did, and I've received more than all of it back over and over again. I've been loved and nourished and stretched and grown. It's been wonderful. I don't want to let go. Not yet. Not just yet.

Everything's happening so fast. Our house went on the market last Thursday and by Friday at noon we had a full price offer for it. This is what we've been praying for. Our house sold in one day, in one showing. Joy! Thankfulness! But also, I can't believe it happened so easily, so fast. How could it have happened so fast? Dread. Panic. I'm not ready. I'm so ready, but I'm also so not ready. To let go of this all. To say goodbye to it all. To have our tiny, cozy, perfect little home belong to someone else. To be so far away from friends and family. It feels really big right now. Really overwhelming. Really right and good and exciting, too. So, you know, a lot of emotion. And we all know how well I deal with a lot of conflicting emotion. It's beginning to wear on me a little bit. Also, we're having just a bit more trouble finding a place to live in North Carolina than I'd expected. So there's that.

But there's also time. Not enough, but there's some. Six more weeks. To savor, to prepare, to transition. To fully, recklessly live. And to break down, and freak out, and cry. Because, let's face it, I will. I will do all those things and then some. And then I'll smile, and turn my face forward. To the now. To the New.

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