Thursday, 04 June 2009

• Final Days of Packing...

  I don't remember where the hell I left off.

  I suppose it doesn't matter, but I've been thinking lately...man, I should blog again!  I'd probably write some pretty good shit.  See, I'm finally in the frame of mind to write again.  I'm myself again...because as the days get closer to us leaving, I'm becoming more and more ME.  I have a sense of humor again.  I'm laughing at nothing, again.  My husband is giving me the, "Have you lost your @#$%ing mind?" look again.  Those are all actually positive signs.

  Right now, I'm sitting in what was once Cait's room...but was Cullen's for a while before that...but now it's a spare room again.  A spare room stacked with mountains of shit I don't know what to do with.

  I'm a sentimental idiot so this packing up and moving thing is HARD for me.  Really hard.  I keep coming across lame things that I can't throw away.  "Oh man, I can't throw away these underwear!  I know they're holey...but I was wearing them the night I was at that 3-story club with Kimberly, my fellow flight attendant...and we started flirting with these really ugly guys and they bought us drinks and I got so drunk I ripped my hair extension thing off my head, waved it around and screamed, 'THIS IS FAKE!!!' to the whole bar!  Then, I went in the bathroom stall and nearly peed down my leg trying to pull my underwear down....Oh!  And then I became fixated on staring at those underwear around my thighs for like, five minutes, until Kim came looking for me asking if I had died....and then I just laughed, washed my hands, and had another drink."

  Okay, to most, that would make no sense as a "fond" memory...but it's one of those ones that's got to sweeten with age...even if said underwear sure hasn't sweetened any.  Why is it that when you're drunk, everything seems much more profound?

  Then there are the baby clothes...and the baby stuff...most of which I've already sold in a yard sale, but some of the things hold so much memory that I can't let it go.  I can remember my kids wearing it and I love holding up their clothes and marveling at how tiny they really were.  I could do this for hours, but it tears at my heartstrings so much that I just wish I could keep that stuff forever in the large plastic totes they were stored in and not have to look at it again.  Nothing hurts as much as your kids growing up.

  All of this also begs the issue of, "Are we done?" Are we really done having kids?  I mean, we live in a society where people really HATE people who have kids.  Seriously, it seems like there are always at least two news stories about bad mothers and people love gawking at people who have more than six kids like they are some kind of human freak show.  Being someone who came from large families, I can't understand all this.  Doing my family tree, I discovered ancestors who had about 16 kids...but nobody was calling them for a reality show.  I don't look down my nose at The Duggars - What are they on, now?  About 18 kids or something?  All conceived naturally and they're all great, well-behaved kids?  Whose business is it anyway?

  I'm trying to decide whether or not to pack the maternity clothes.  I always wanted a big family IF I was going to have one.  Well, the seal is already broken.  When I tell people I might like to have four, they give me disgusted looks and say things like, "Are you crazy?"  Hmm...well, in my family, it seems like four kids were the standard.  It's not all that odd to me.  However, I wouldn't have been unhappy had I found out I was infertile, either.  There are so many positives about BOTH lifestyles.  Attitudes about kids have really changed from when I was growing up, though.

  Of course, back then, we weren't all raised with some self-important schtick about how we were supposed to be "empowered" women and sew up our vaginas, put on a business suit, make a lot of money to buy a lot of materialistic shit we didn't need to impress a lot of shallow people we didn't like anyway.  We were raised to believe that family was the most important thing.  It was OKAY if a woman stayed home with her kids.  It didn't make her a fat, lazy bon-bon eater who watched soap operas. 

  So, I don't know whether to pack those maternity clothes or not.  I'm not getting any younger.

  There's so much else that's breaking my heart to leave.  I wanted to bring a few pieces of furniture so our new home would feel like "home", but then I read all these people saying to pack as little of your own stuff as possible because the movers must drop your stuff from cliffs before you see it again.  They've all claimed that half their stuff was broken.  It would probably hurt worse to be looking forward to those items only to open them and find them all broken.  I don't know what to bring, either. 

  Then, there is the house itself.  It's military housing - stupid, silly me for getting attached, I know...but it's home and has been for the last 4½ years.  It was Cullen's first home...and Cait's.  They took their first steps in the living room.  There is still a crayon drawing on the wall...Cullen somehow did a sneaky portrait of four stick figures.  It was the first time we ever realized he could draw stick people...and it was so cute, we had to keep it.  Four misshapen little stick people that I'm going to have to take a Mr. Clean magic eraser to...and it's going to rip my heart out, too.

  The house is still so full of our stuff and so full of clutter that it hasn't all hit me, yet...but I know the rush of emotions is really going to hit and it's going to suck.  Of course, I'm hoping some of this is going to be subdued by the fact that we're going to Japan...and there is so much to think about and so much to do.

  The movers will be here next week to start packing and crating our stuff...and then we're going on another cross-country road trip.  My sister saw our previous road trip movie and told me I should do it again...so I'll probably film it again...only this should be much better because we have an HD camera that actually zooms and films more than a few minutes at a time.  I'm going to turn into a Japanese tourist.  Our country is so freaking cool and I love driving across it.  We've got the friendliest people and some of the coolest things to see and do.  I've loved living here...and I'll love it again when we return, assuming politics doesn't implode the country and destroy my mothership.  I'd be pissed.

  Here's hoping we don't get caught in any tornadoes this time, either.  That part kind of sucked.  My husband will not be forcing us to drive through severe storms in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma.  Now I've got to figure out what to do about this whole guitar thing...How will I live without my guitar until it arrives in express shipment?  Okay, headaches...

  But I thought I really should get on here and update about what's going on.  Believe me, my own best friend has rarely heard from me in a month.  All I can think about is tying up loose ends...but I should blog more.  There will be SO much to write about!

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