I was under the illusion that staying in Abu Dhabi would relieve the stress of having to move. Um, no. I’m still freaking moving. I’ve just spent the past 2 days as I would with any other move — up to my elbows in junk, tossing things right and left, sneezing from all the dust, and feeling surprisingly nostalgic about the things that we’ve phased out of. Classic books that I hoped the boys would read that won’t appeal to Camille (or they are at the library): gone. All the early picture books and easy readers: gone (but not my precious Five in a Row books). Caleb’s outgrown clothes — with no boy coming up behind him, gone.
So much more to do . . . I’ve finished our bedroom (my half at least), the bookshelves, one bathroom and I’m off to take care of more. This is the part where I always want to skip ahead to the end or abandon it all and start over fresh on the other side. But for the first time in 21 years we’re actually taking a vacation in the middle of a move. Every other transition we’ve jumped from one place to the next (because I can’t enjoy a vacation while I have 20 million things on my to do list, including finding a place to live), but this time the clock stops when we leave Abu Dhabi and I can’t do anything to speed up the transition process so I should be able to rest, relax, and enjoy our time in CA.
Reminding myself that every bit I do now is going to make life easier when we’re moving in — whenever and wherever that may be!