Springing a leak

Because the point of a blog is sort of to get personal, and I'm sort of paranoid about actually getting personal, I haven't been posting much.

For years, almost since I moved here, I've had "I-have-to-get-out-of-this-town" disease.

And now I'm getting out of this town. And, whaddya know? I'm SAD.

Gee, go figure, you spend five years someplace and you (gasp) make friends and (gasp) grow attached to the mountains outside your window and (gasp) decide you really, really love your church.

My first major, embarrassing meltdown was actually last night. I was sort of proud of myself for waiting until then, because all of yesterday was just one long reason to bawl my friggin' eyes out.

First, our priest gave me a present, which not only meant more to me than I'll say in a blog about, you know, knitting, but it knocked me over because I didn't know he remembered this was our last Sunday. I managed to avoid crying all over that one with superhuman effort, but I'm sure when I write the thank-you note I'll be blubbering all over the place. Then we went to lunch with some friends, three generations of a family of kindred spirits. They also gave us presents, and one of them said "I just realized -- everybody's moved away and you are my last friends here and now I'm all alone!"

I didn't cry at that one simply because I drank a lot of lemonade while we were eating lunch and I really, really needed to go to the loo. Again, I am positive there will be retrospective lack of decorum.

What made me finally cry in public was this family with seven kids that came in late to evening vespers, their almost-2-year-old had obviously just woken up from her nap, and her black eyebrows were furrowed under her pink hood, and every time I tried to wave at her she'd scowl at me sleepily and bury her head in her dad's shoulder.

Now, some backstory: this kid has had a piece of my heart since I spied her toddling after her mother at church several months ago. She reached waaaaaaay up to get her hand in the holy water font, and then smacked herself very reverently in the forehead.

She was 18 months old.

More recently, she sat in front of us at Mass, and during the passing of the peace she turned around, grabbed my left hand with her right hand, jerked it, and said "Pee-choo."

So here she is with her frizzy black curls poking out of her pink furry hood, playing peek-a-boo with me around her dad's back, and I'm realizing, I'm not going to see her grow up.

So after prayers I go to say goodbye to them, meet their littlest -- three weeks old, her first name the same as my confirmation name, by coincidence or divine sense of humor -- and I lose it.

These are, of course, the world's nicest people and they have no problem understanding why I start bawling in mid-sentence when I say this is the last time I'll be at this church. Their oldest daughter starts patting my shoulder and the mother hands me the baby, who proceeds to give my husband the one-eyebrow stare like "What the heck are you?!" But still. I've managed to keep my composure around people I've been close to for five years, and I barely know these people and I am sobbing like my hormones are on fire or something.

And then I give the baby back, and the almost-2-year-old warns me calmly that the baby just spit up on her brother's face.

Goodbyes are hard.

I haven't even gotten to the worst part yet. I have a couple more goodbyes to say, and at least one I just don't think I can handle. I'm chickening out. I've planned (and knit) a whimsical stunt in lieu of actually saying the words, and that's going to have to be enough, because there is just no way. I don't even mean there's no way I can do it without bawling like a 5-year-old on the last day of kindergarten, I mean there's no way.

Cry wolf

I'm really moving, and this time I'm serious. I got a new job, I'm getting a new zip code, and I'm a little bit spazzed out.

My new apartment, (sans the model furniture, and my view is definitely not that good), looks like this:

My current apartment, while I'm packing, looks like this:

My husband and I, after several whirlwind seven-hour trips, getting lots of details nailed down (with many more to go), and giving our two-weeks notice today, look like this:

(... only not as cute, of course.)

. . .
In the meantime, the knitablog showed up, and this is what it looked like when it visited:

I could use a girl like you ... in my basement

So I haven't been posting a lot, because I've been busy. I got a fabulous job in the perfect city; some little old lady decided she wanted to move into an assisted living facility but didn't want to sell her gorgeous house so she's letting us rent it for dirt cheap because it's paid for as long as we take care of it. I moved and managed to sell two short stories all in the same two weeks and my husband is starting grad school in January. Oh, and I managed to lose most of that 40 pounds I've been fighting!

...

...

... OK. So actually, I still have my same job, same apartment, haven't sold any stories and the husband thinks he's sick of school after finishing his undergrad.

But I have been busy. Hacking up a lung, babying my carpal tunnel because it's two months before Christmas and I've still got a lot of knitting to do, working crazy amounts of overtime, and becoming addicted to "Lost."

*hangs head in shame* I know. All my preaching about the evils of wasting time sitting on one's arse in front of the boob tube, and I had to get addicted to a TV show that involved renting 22 episodes on DVD, + commentary, and watching them all in a matter of two weeks. I guess I don't need to tell you that the weight loss comment was bogus, too, huh.

However, my mother has challenged everybody in the family to a holiday pedometer contest, starting today. Everybody is playing except my skinny sister-in-law, who opted out, and I am bound and determined to win. Since I'm on temporary knitting hiatus and my lung capacity is starting to come back, I have nothing else to do besides walk... and study. Walking is more fun.

More later, perhaps including pics of a sort of ugly blue and green sweater that I finished but haven't yet posted.