A slow leak

First I moved to this new blog name. Now we're moving, for real.

Me and Mr. Maus and the nugget are leaving the city and heading across the Golden Gate. We are headed to warmer weather, more space, a back-yard, a deck, a fireplace, two bathrooms, a washer and dryer and a master bedroom. Luxury it is not, for the little rental house that we found is quirky and old and may even be described by some as odd, but it fits. It fits us.

We've lived quite a life in these 700sq ft and it is a bittersweet transition to move out of the city and out of this apartment. It has taken me nearly 4 years to feel like this place is home, so it is somewhat ironic to be leaving it now. But we don't fit and as much as we know that you don't need 4 bedrooms to make us happy and that much of the world lives together in spaces smaller than ours, our life simply doesn't fit into a one-bedroom apartment anymore.

I have shed some tears and had some extreme feelings of overwhelm, but now there is a peace about this whole process. It is the peace that comes with having made a decision. And so one box and drawer and corner at a time, I am packing it all up.

Moving is one of the seven major life transitions that can cause extra stress and despair and heartache. I suppose that comes from feeling uprooted and disconnected and disorganized and weighed down by the immensity of one's possessions. I have been trying to be mindful about what moving really is - at the end of the day its just movement from one place to another. It is change. This awareness has allowed me to feel almost comfortable in the uprootedness and attentive to how it must feel to the nugget whose external world is changing one Uhaul box at a time.

I was expecting chaos and perhaps that will still come but it feels more gradual and calm than I had expected. My brother asked me if the tornado had started this morning and it made me stop to think. I replied, "No, its more like a slow leak."