{All in a Month} PART ONE: The move

We moved. I stalled, and stalled, and stalled, digging my heals in and whining like a baby; I didn't want to pack up my house. I just didn't. We sold away our lives when we moved back to the mainland from Hawaii, and I was only just recently feeling like I was finally "set put" in one place. And then we decided to move to Bali.


So, yes, I waited until the.very.end. to pack up our stuff. It was super fun and exciting for Chris! He loooooved it. Nothing like being unprepared on moving day! Yeaaa baby! My super efficient and organized husband was never been more attracted to me.


Anyway, we were "those people" on moving day. There was lots of blank stares and arms folding on my part. I was extremely helpful. Lucky or us, we have amazing, incredible friends (how does that keep happening??) that never complained about how slow(!) I was moving, and just started taking our house a part, packing, loading, and then cleaning from top bottom.


I finally was banished to our bedroom, and ordered to "just get that all taken care of". Something in my subconscious was telling me that if I actually didn't physically do anything to help move, then maybe it wouldn't happen. So, after staring, and staring, and staring at all my things, I was surprised that my subconscious was right: nothing will get done if you don't do it. But this is happening; now get movin'.


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Eventually I made it into my closet. I patted myself on the back when all the clothes eventually made it downstairs. Then there were all those odds and ends. Each time I made a trip back into the closet, I ignored the bright blue box sitting up in the corner. I would deal with that later.


After everything else in my room was gone, I sheepishly reached up. I decided to open it up, and made myself comfy in our closet. I pulled out the tiny blanket. Then the hat. The hospital bands plunked onto my lap. I let my fingers run over each item.


My son was wrapped in the blanket.

His whole body fit in that hat.

The leaf post-it note was grabbed off the hospital door on our way out; it warned people that we were to be treated differently than others.

And those are his foot prints.


And for a moment it all seemed so wrong. I shouldn't have a blue box in my closet. I should have a curly haired toe head (because of course he would have curls!!) running around, messing up my piles. When did this become my life? When did I learn about infertility, pregnancy loss, and home studies? When did I cry over blue boxes? How did I know what a failed adoption or two felt like?

I just sat in the closet.

Once I thought my heart was beating again, I decided to see how the troops were doing, leaving these precious valuables in slow motion, to sit alone in the closet. I got to work on the house, and busily kept my mind away from where they begged to linger.

Later that night, as I walked down the hall, I felt like a ton a bricks hit me; I stopped to catch my breath. I slowly let myself fall to the floor, and just cried.


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Chris and I are vagabonds. We move. It's what we do. It's probably the most annoying quality about us, but we just can't kick it. I distinctively remember leaving Hawaii. It felt like such an encompassing loss. It was a hard, hard, hard move. The people we came to love on that island were are family. And, the island made me a mother, where before I only longed to be, and never really knew if it would happen at all...

I distinctively remember taking off on the airplane, and jokingly thinking, "What if I can't ever get pregnant, after we leave this place! Wouldn't that be crazy?"

Anyway. Hawaii to me was a chapter of goodness. I got pregnant, and defied death, but delivered two healthy beautiful babes. It was a beautiful, growing, happy, blessed time. And we knew it. That is our Hawaii chapter.

Orange County. 


I had high hopes for Orange County. And to be honest, and of course bitter and cynical, it really didn't pull through. When I think of our chapter in Orange County, it hurts; that is the automatic response. It actually takes my breath away. I want to never relive those three years. Ever again. Orange County seemed to be a constant trial, a constant hurdle to over come. 


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My mother in law came out the bathroom with tears in her eyes. She said, "Well, I did it. I just cleaned off all the little finger prints in the bathroom.... I just erased Hugh and J from this home."

And I knew in that moment, exactly what she meant.

We had lived here. Ya know. Like really, really, really lived. Times were not always bright and wonderful. It shaped me. Pulled me. Molded me. Burned me. Hurt me. Taught me what I was made of. I am not the same person I was when I bright eyed and bushy tailed moved there from the island of the Gods.

But, life was going on. Even still. This home wasn't going to mourn our loss. Some other random strangers were bound to move in soon, and they would live and have memories, heart breaks and miracles. We would go to some place new, and our boys would make more messes, and leave traces of themselves where ever we go; because we're human, and we just keep living, through the messes, the pain, and the joy.

Orange County was a time of growing. It was our "Growing Chapter".

And then it was gone. Our little Huntington Beach abode was nada. It happened. I really lived there, and I didn't die. I lived.

And the pit in my stomach said, "Job well done.".