Ch-ch-changes

The bedroom is still dark as I open the closet door and slip my feet into my brown Maryjane crocs. I can't see them, and I don't need to see them because they lay where they always are when I put them in my closet.
That's when it hits me. Once we move out of this house, how long will it be until I have a home where my shoes are always in the same place?

Me looking as close to anxious as we have a
picture of while traveling in France. 

If we move out at the end of September, we will have three months of patchwork living here in the U.S. before Earl retires. We might stay with friends, or several groups of friends so we don't wear out our welcome. We might share an apartment with Grace and her boyfriend, leaving our things behind in a spare bedroom when we depart for France. We could simply rent AirBnbs for the next three months.
And then, having lived like gypsies in Columbus, we'll be off to France, moving from housesit to housesit, staying with more friends in between or spending nights or weeks at AirBnb properties.
It sounds like a marvelous adventure, and I plan to enjoy it.

But I also need to come to terms with the fact that it might make me anxious, not having a closet door to open, knowing that my brown Maryjane crocs will be there.

P.S. --For those of you worried about my fashion sense in France,  I'm not actually planning on taking my crocs with me -- they're just representational of my realization that nothing will have a set place until we put down roots again.

The Perfect Storm

This morning at 7 a.m., I turned on the Weather Channel.
I'm going to have to admit that before yesterday, I didn't know where the Weather Channel was, but talk on the news about Tropical Storm Isaac and the Republican Convention in Tampa led me to search for the Weather Channel. Not because I'm attending or I'm worried about the delegates, but because Spencer is now in college close by.
The first taste of adulthood, a beach, and a hurricane may just add up to the perfect storm.

I first mentioned the storm to Spencer on Saturday while on FaceTime. FaceTime is like Skype except we can do it on our iPhones. I caught him still in bed at 12:30.
"Yeah, we thought we'd just ride out the storm here. Just hunker down," he said, his eyes bleary as he lay shirtless in bed.
I explained that it didn't look like the college was going to allow that. They had an evacuation plan to take the students inland. He had a meeting at 4 on Saturday.
I finally reached him again Saturday evening. Yes, the college was heading toward evacuation, but he and some friends had decided on their own plan. They were going to get a couple of hotel rooms in Orlando.
"What?" I might have screeched.
"I don't want to go to some camp," he said.
He ran through a list of friends he'd known for two weeks now. They planned to drive to Orlando, hang out during the Tropical Storm.
I started adding up costs, gas, hotel, food. No supervision. A bunch of 18-year-olds in a hotel room. This looked like a disaster.
"This might be the shortest college career in history if you run out of money after three weeks," I warned him in a bad mothering moment. "You know you still need to pay for your fall books."
"Some people have already gotten kicked out," he replied.
"Okay, I'm proud that you're working hard," I said, pulling back from the brink of even worse parenting. "I just don't think this is a good decision."
Later that night, another email from the college explained that the students should bring their books for their classes and instruction. I called Spencer again to "reason" with him.
He was quick to cut me off.
"I'm going with the college," he said.
And I exhaled in relief.
The college was busing the students inland to a camp, but they would be together, organized, under someone else's supervision. And the college would pick up the tab.
I don't know if Spencer reconsidered, or maybe the parents of his friends were more persuasive, or maybe the parents of his friends put their foot down. "No! You are not going."
However it happened, this afternoon, Spencer is scheduled to evacuate with the rest of the freshman at his college. Unless the storm changes course. Then, they might get to hunker down and watch the rain, the wind and the surf increase. Well, that will bring a whole other host of worries for me.
Update: Luckily for us, the storm did change course and the college decided around noon not to evacuate. Maybe his first instinct was right.
I hope all of those other college students and residents in the path of the storm are safe too.

Worry Bubbles

Do you ever lie in bed when you should be sleeping and worry instead?
I was doing that yesterday morning. It was early, a time when I should still be sleeping when my eyes popped open. If I could manage to avoid letting thoughts take root, I could probably fall back to sleep. But my current worry was there waiting for me and, like a firework, it soared to the front of my brain ready to explode and drip slowly from the sky. As soon as I started to toss and turn, the younger cat moved from his place at my feet to nudge me with his head, to pounce on my hand if it moved beneath the blanket. I pushed him away and tried to return to sleep.

After a little while longer, I turned on my side and determined that I couldn't fix my current worry.
In my half sleepy state, I decided to let it go. A giant bluish white bubble floated away from me and the pestering cat. That was my worry floating away. I fell back to sleep.
Throughout the day though, I felt it coming back, and I reminded myself that I had let it go. Things would work out. That's hard though, for a control freak like me. I want to manipulate things until they fall into neat rows.
I pushed it away all day, but it was still there. I hadn't let it go, even as I tried to picture that bluish white bubble floating away each time.
A phone call from my mom early this morning as I stood in the coffee shop swept the worry away. I knew I shouldn't have held onto it.
How do you let go of worries when you don't have control?

Let Me Take You To - Funk Town

Things were sliding downhill this morning. Actually, it started last night. I'd have to say my overall mood was verklempt, to borrow a word from the Yiddish.
When the realization finally dawned on me that I was feeling sad, I tried to pin it down. I'm not that aware of how I'm feeling until I bite someone's head off, or, like last night, wander from the dishes in the sink to the laundry in the wash without accomplishing either. I just wanted someone else to come take care of it, and I knew my papers were waiting to be graded.
So, pop, came the realization that I was a little down. Then I needed to figure out why.
1.Today is the championship swim meet for the summer league and I work from 8 to 3. Oh, sure, I have some time while I sit in the classroom and the students are researching their essays, but I can't drive the 20 minutes to cheer on my kids and get back to collect papers.
2. Next week is the national swim meet that Grace will be swimming in. My husband will take her, Spencer and the French girl to Washington DC. I will stay home with Tucker. I will work all week and wish that I was there to watch her or to drive to the Jefferson Memorial at night and watch the lights reflect on the water.
3.Work, maybe overwork, is getting to me a little bit. I haven't read a book in weeks. I don't have time. Sometimes I'll sit down with papers to grade while my husband has the Tour de France on, but that's as close as I've been to leisure time lately. Unless my morning runs count as leisure time, but often they seem like work too.
4.Seeing Grace's itchiness, her need for alone time, while we have our house guest worries me about her ability to go away to college and live in such close proximity to other people. Why am I worrying about something so far in the future?

So this morning, I found someone to give them a ride to the swim meet. They had to be there at 7:40 and my class started at 8. A friend said she'd pick them up at 6:30. She likes to get there early. At 6:15, I roused them. They complained. I fixed bagels and cream cheese. I gathered folding chairs and blankets and a bag of food supplies. We waited until 7:05 when the ride finally showed up. Am I allowed to be pissed at someone who is doing me a favor?
I finished getting ready for work, rushed to campus so I could print off the essay assignment, and the computers had all been disconnected from the printer. I couldn't print the assignment which I was giving the students today.
Bummed. I pushed the button for the elevator to go down three floors. Dead silence from the elevator shafts. Both of them.
I finally open the door of my classroom, a few minutes late, feeling even more verklempt when there, on the table next to my desk is a Tim Horton's box. Chad, one of my students, brought me donuts!! Donuts? That's the nicest thing anyone has done for me, well, today anyway.
I sent them off to the library.
"You should have a starting pistol," one of the students said.
"When I bite into the donut, go," I said. I held up the donut with crystallized sugar on it. "And, go." I bit into the donut and my day took a turn.