Spoiler alert re: Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things. Skip the second paragraph. There is also profanity in this post. Be advised. 

Moving is no joke. Even when you land somewhere as beautiful as Florida, it is monumental. It is beyond draining. It is hard.

Two kids each with their own issues, and the near constant advocacy required to keep it all going in new schools(one with a teacher who is well meaning and doing her best but with absolutely no ASD training). A commute that has me in the car between 3-4 hours a day in crazy traffic. The “clean” diet the kids require to keep them functioning at their potential. Supplement schedules, new doctors, dentists, specialists of every variety. And the good news/bad news looming knowledge we’ll be moving again locally when our lease is up in August, in an effort to nix the aforementioned commute. Riley has flown through her specialized program this year and will be ready for high school next year. Seth will be in a different school as well, starting middle school.

I have not written. I have not blogged. I have not visited Pinterest. I have not been on Twitter (not that I was ever much of a tweeter). Worse still, I have only read one non-yoga related book in months. Elizabeth Gilbert’s newest. Seriously, great book, but poor Alma. Will someone please have sex with her?

Did I mention I became a yoga teacher? I did. Smartest decision I made and I didn’t even plan it that way, but hello instant community of the most wonderful sort. I adore these people and loved every minute of the training. I’m hoping to help autism moms with self-care. Yes, yes, we teach what we need to learn.

Before moving, I let go of so many material things. Things I didn’t need. Things that didn’t serve me or my family.

Since here, I’ve also been letting go of behaviors. The kind where I don’t speak up and I tolerate things that are hurting my feelings. The kind where I self-sacrifice and co-dependently give to the point of my own detriment. The kind where I take on other peoples’ stuff, often without them even asking, and bear it for them, because I can’t tolerate seeing them in pain. The move just pushed me to the point of such exhaustion, I couldn’t. Could not. Could no longer do it. I was flat on the ground, thyroid/hormones/adrenals out of whack, last nerve raw, empty…not a brain cell or heart cell left to offer.

And then I spent some time kicking myself for not being more spiritual than that. More evolved. Move giving. More loving.

And maybe a better person could handle things differently than me, but turns out I’m not a “better” person. I’m just me. And there is some relief in that.

And some strength in it too. But boundaries come with sadness and loss.

I’m cracked open. Limited. 45 years old. 13 years into this intense uber parenting gig, and I’m fucking tired. Moving is said to be one of the most stressful events in a person’s life. Right up there with death and divorce. Moving with my kids? And doing it again in a few months?

The “perfect” mother friend wife sister is gone. None of you were fooled anyway, right?

So I’ve been doing tons of yoga, obviously, and it’s done its thing, filling me up with oxygen. Toning my muscles. Busting open my heart. Quite literally, a sternum injury the likes of which my teacher had never seen in 20 + years. It is better now, thank Goodness. My body seems to be re-knitting itself. Yesterday some weird thing happened and released in my legs. I could never touch my heels to the ground in down dog, and then boom…there they were, suddenly with no warning. On the floor. Grounded.

And I’ve been meditating religiously, just to stay afloat. To stay just barely on top of what could crush me. And I have the most beautiful man who adores me and for some reason finds me hilarious. And I have two pure hearted angels for children, and we four are so close. And my Hot Toddy reminds me I fostered that. I created this good family. And he reminds me I am good. And he gets fierce about anyone who says I am not. Even me. He’ll not have it. I say something bad about myself, he says, “That’s a lie.”

And I talk to God. I’ve always been good at meditating, and listening, but not so much at asking, and I’m asking God more and more, WTF? I’m so sick of working on myself.

And I breathe.

And I visit the ocean.

And the other day while walking on the beach with my family, I had a tiny glimpsy feeling that maybe I’d like to write something, a fleeting spark of me, coming back to myself, but then thought, no probably not.

But here I am and I did write. And I don’t know if I have it in me to do it again any time soon, but please know the kids are doing well. The weather agrees with Seth and his health is good. Riley is becoming more savvy and poised each day. Truly a young woman. Hot Toddy is sturdy and stable as ever. The dogs are fine, though it is a tad too hot for Jingle’s liking and her walks aren’t as long most days because of it.

And me? I am, as always, for good or bad, a truth teller, ever becoming. Older. Grayer. Hopefully wiser. Ten pounds lighter.

Speaking of truth tellers, the other day, Riley told me I have more wrinkles than I used to.

“Almost every one of them has your name on it,” I replied.

And we laughed! We are at the point where we can have that kind of exchange and laugh. She understands sarcasm.

She’s not so delicate. And I don’t need to be so measured.

I surrender to my own imperfections and limits.

And, I love.

“Ilonka loves.” That was my nickname at yoga teacher training. I’ve been using my first name, Ilonka, in Florida. Michelle is my middle name, in case you didn’t know that. And my teacher gave all of us Sanskrit names at our graduation, and mine was Anahata Devi (open hearted Goddess).

Ilonka loves.

More and more, even her own messy self.

And that ocean.

She rocks me like a baby.

My grandmother used to say she’d earned every wrinkle. Coming across this video I am reminded of her. Watching it feels like a meditation, and a celebration of every wrinkle, every age spot, every memory stored in the body, every sorrow and every joy.

Life. Movement. Breath.

My friend Maia from julia warr on Vimeo.

“Simplicity. Work. Enjoyment.”

Love.

Every day, when I unload the dishwasher, the tops of these cups are full of water. And the water tends to spill out onto the other dry dishes. And it is irritating. Not a biggie when you think about the state of the world, I know. It’s so trivial I’ve been dealing with it for the last 15 years (except the non-dishwasher years).

Today, when I unloaded the dishwasher, and the bottoms of these cups (there are only two left out of a set of six, Pfaltzgraff, lovely really) the water spilled out onto the dry dishes and I suddenly thought….I don’t need to keep those.

I thought I had purged every household thing we didn’t use or love, but those cups. There they were. Every day.

So after dropping the kids at school I had to drop something at UPS, and right next door was a giant thrift shop and I went in and got new cups. Two to replace the two that will be leaving me, today.

I like the feel of them. I love the textures. Morning coffee or tea rituals are so much more than about the coffee or tea. It’s the whole feel of it. They were like, a dollar each. And the bottoms are nice and flat.

Just how I like ’em.

What irritating thing are you putting up with?

We are in Florida.

Putting our house on the market, keeping it spotless for months, selling it, and moving has kicked our butts. I feel like I’ve aged ten years in the last six months. I am feeling very off center. Our stuff isn’t here yet but will arrive this week and then we unload/unpack. I’m feeling very much like we’re too tired to do this “ourselves” again. We packed it all and loaded the container and will unload/unpack when it gets here. We’ve been sleeping on air mattresses too long, and eating on the floor, picnic style.

Anyway, we’re here. We’re safe. Todd starts his new job tomorrow. I’ve got a bazillion details to contend with around the rental house and schools and new doctors and orthodontists, etc. My head spins. Clothes piled everywhere because we have no dressers here yet. The disorder is unsettling. School will start later this month. All in all, all is well, but Mommy needs a break. I feel weepy for no reason. A lot. Today I went to a movie by myself, and that helped. Just to change the freaking subject.

The ocean is close and I can go there as quick as I could get to the grocery store in Cleveland. The other night I was heading to Target, but found myself going in the opposite direction. Found myself on the shore. I sat on the sand and watched the colors change until it became night. And it was like someone was breathing life into me.

As often as I can, I’ll keep doing that.

Problems seem so much smaller while looking at the ocean.

Some things about Florida: They have newts. Luckily the girl is charmed by them and not freaked out. Also…they allow smoking in public places. We’ve been spoiled in Ohio and also our home state of NY where it is outlawed. Nothing like breathing in that filthy poison from the next table while at a public pool or enjoying dinner out. And another thing, the driving is more aggressive. This ain’t the friendly mid-west. No, you go. No, you go. I’ll wait.  None of that here. Let’s just say we’ve been honked at a few times.

We are renting a tiny house with a tiny pool, and the other night while trying out the pool, we noticed two parrots had landed on the telephone wire above us. We’d never seen any not in a cage. That was cool. Palm trees are everywhere. The days are brutally hot but the mornings and evenings are beautiful.

Did I mention the ocean? I always thought living near it was a dream out of reach, but here we are.

The past couple of months have been some of the most stressful we’ve ever experienced. We are now in the final stretch, and soon we will be in our new home (renting), in a new state.

We sold the house and closing is in a couple of weeks.

We are packing and I have gone through every inch of this house, sorting and sifting and doing everything in my power to make sure nothing comes with us that isn’t useful, or that we don’t love. It makes moving considerably harder. You can’t just dump drawers into boxes. You have to go over every drawer and nook with a fine tooth comb, and you have to be firm and unsentimental.

We are at a turning point in our lives, and we don’t want to be weighed down with things we don’t value or need. Interestingly, Todd is having a harder time letting go of some things than I am. Why the man would want to hang onto my paintings from high school I don’t know, but I am like…NO. Off to the curb.

Funny enough, a neighbor came by and took them.  Hot Toddy feels so much better about it now.

I was talking to someone recently who had to go through her parents stuff after their deaths, and she said it was a terrible burden, to have to toss things she knew meant a lot to them. I’ve been using this stratedgy on HT, “So we’ll carry around this stuff, storing it for the next 30 years and then burden the children with having to get rid of it after we’re gone?”

He conceded.

The house we’ll be renting has much less space, so that is another incentive.

Anyway…it’s HOT out, and our current house doesn’t have AC. And it’s really only this hot a few weeks out of the year and we have window units for the bedrooms so it’s never been a problem, but we are doing hard labor. Up and down the stairs a million times. Hauling boxes to our POD, (we pack it and load it, they drive it and drop off in our new driveway, we unload ourselves. It’s much cheaper than hiring movers but it is a ton of work).

We are almost there. The attic and upstairs bedrooms, and basement and most of the garage are all cleared out. I’ve been scrubbing the bedroom floors because I want it to be perfect and clean for the new owners. All that’s left is piled into the dining room for more boxing and sorting. And I can’t really pack the kitchen yet with a couple of weeks to go. Not with special needs diets and needing to make most of our food at home. Though the kids are getting more processed food than they’ve ever had (and more TV and iPod).

Our POD is almost full.  There is a treasure trove at the curb. We made the junk collector’s day. Seriously. He picked up so much stuff in front of our house and beamed and proclaimed he could stop work early today. Also, we live in a neighborhood that values recycling. Neighbors took away a lot of stuff too. A new family across the street got Seth’s train table, and a bunch of other stuff. Other neighbors took things from the garage. Another one took storage bins we no longer need. It feels good to give stuff away to people who can use it.

I feel like we’re in the final stages of labor. We’re pushing now. We are so close. It’s all going to be worth it. But I look around feeling overwhelmed, I can’t do it! There’s no possible way! Yet somehow I know it will all happen.

We are sweaty and sore. We have BO (TMI?). We’re limping along to the finish. Yes, I’m mixing metaphors now but I’m fried so cut me some slack.

Sorting

and sifting

and tossing.

And boxing things up.

Oh my.

Nice garage, but I don’t want to rent the place if that guy is going to be hanging around.

We are going to be renting soon, and I am looking at apartments and rental homes through a realtor and also seeing what I can find on Craigslist. What I’m finding are a lot of men in the shots.

Dude, seriously?

It goes on and on and honestly, it ain’t selling the places. It’s kind of creepy. They look like ghosts.

Someone’s in the microwave…

Et tu Fido?

Woof.

We found the perfect house to rent the other day, and we were about two hours too late. Our only hope is that the first applicant’s credit is lousy. And of course I would never wish that on anyone, right? Sigh.

The search continues.