Moved

Our family just moved.

We landed in our new house full of boxes on the first night of Hanukah, four days before Christmas. That’s my explanation for not having posted in a long while. November dutifully marked the onset of the Holiday Season. This year, it also marked the onset of what we called The Big Purge: Throwing out and giving away a lot of extraneous personal belongings; Cleaning out file cabinets that hadn’t been undone in many years; Exorcising bottomless junk drawers; Sorting through an attic filled with baby gear that no one in our family will be putting to use any time soon. We had a lot of packing to do, so the purge came first. I thought I would be inspired to write, as I unearthed forgotten treasures, sleep-deprived and eye-high in to-do lists. But it didn’t happen. I convinced myself I didn’t have the time or energy to write.

Moving day was a twelve-hour marathon of packing, crying, consoling, and admiring the super-human endurance of eight undereducated demi-gods who did, in fact, leap small buildings in a single bound – over and over and over again, laden with impossibly heavy loads, without complaint. We forgot to light the menorah, neglected to play dreidel, and failed to fry up any latkes because Chinese food was a whole lot easier. Our youngest daughter packed some things in a shopping bag before bed, threatening to move back home. We loved our old house.

Nearly three weeks in, we are enjoying our new house. I think we will love it soon. The girls don’t talk about moving back any more. They have settled into a rhythm here, now that school is back in session and they have their geographical bearings. This new house is big. Our old house was big for us, when we first moved in. Before children, three bedrooms seemed like a huge amount of space. Complete with three acres of untouched woodland, it was our own small country.

Now we are townies, with a big yard. And this new, bigger house seems immense. I am told I’ll appreciate all the space when the girls hit their teen years. I think back to my own, sullen teens, in the two-bedroom apartment I shared with my mother and an ornery cat. It was plenty of space for us. The math doesn’t add up: do four people and one aging dog need so much more space? I can’t help but question our priorities. “Bigger is Better” was not a slogan of my youth. I was brought up with “No Nukes” and “Zero Population Growth” and “Fight the Power”.  I want our girls to be conscientious citizens of the world. It’s a struggle.

We’ve been here almost three weeks and we’re still surrounded by boxes. The holidays brought new stuff, to complement the old stuff, which we haven’t completely unpacked. We’re living very comfortably. So I have to wonder: What is in all these boxes?

I have a dedicated office in the new house. That’s the big bonus. A room of my own. Currently uninhabitable, filled with boxes of family photos, reference books, precious printouts from Ancestry.com, and my preferred computer, still hibernating since the move. I imagine doing serious work in my new office. The manuscript will get done there. I will fight distraction with a new vigor.

I’ve been up since 3:30 am, debating whether to get up and write. Or should I unpack boxes?