moosh

I knew I'd be in for an adjustment period leaving the only city I've ever really lived in for the majority of my life, a place I'd worked myself up to being a medium-sized fish in a small pond... but Mr. Perfect and a new life in an area I've felt drawn to for several years seemed worth it. And it was. And it is. 

And I was also spot on about the adjustment period.

Our two weeks and one day of marriage have included about 30 hours of travel time across four states (the majority of it driving); packing and loading a moving truck; several visits to the doctor; one trip to family court; and lots and lots and lots of mooshing together.

Mr. Perfect rents a quirky but lovable home--about 2,000 sq ft--though it feels smaller thanks to its two rooms with ceilings so sloped they're almost unusable, and a strange configuration of doors, closets, and light switches forcing awkward furniture layouts. Also--the fact that there will soon be ten of us living here along with ten people's amounts of stuff: Me coming with four boys, Mr. Perfect and his two girls, his mom (Mother Perfect), and his handicapped sister (Sister Perfect).

We all knew it could be a challenge to live together, but we all genuinely enjoy each others company and knew there could also be some totally awesome things about the arrangement. And still feel that way--we just have to figure out how to arrange the arrangement first.

Mother Perfect raised ten children and has amassed a collection of formal, Victorian-era furniture over the years. Even though I sold at least 1/3 of everything I owned before I came here, and the boys surrendered a lot of their favorite things, too, including their pet--I still brought all the best of the best of what I had left, a lot of it demonstrative of my love of big, bold pieces. Mr. Perfect has enough art and collectibles from his years in design direction, clothing, and television to fill a museum of radness. Anyway--it's a lot of stuff we all have. A lot of good stuff. And we've learned some difficult lessons about stuff this week.

Like how hard it is to detach the memory or person from the stuff associated with it/them.

Like how hard it can be to just let things go.

Currently, we are living with four homes worth of stuff squished into every available square foot of this one home. And we know some of it has to go.  A lot of it. And preferably before my boys move in on Christmas (which was the point of me being away from them for an entire month--getting a home established). But what goes? Who budges? Is the big set of bookshelves custom made for me which housed all my beloved first-edition, signed books at my old house more important than the big china hutch of Mother Perfect that houses all the plates and crystal she has collected?

Is the couch my mother insisted I buy with the money I would inherit at her death more important than the table inherited from Mother Perfect's grandpa?

Will there be enough room on the walls for pictures of my family too?

Will my boys feel they have their own space sleeping four to a room?

There just isn't room for every thing but there HAS to be room for every one.  Running a family of six children has to stay our focus.

Yeah...

It really has been a happy transition thus far what with the man I love, warm days and palm trees wrapped in Christmas lights,  the smell of the ocean forever in the air and so much laughter-- but I am itching to get settled. To create an environment we can all function and thrive in. To figure out school and work arrangements.To find time to do things like read and write again. To find a new place in a community still quite foreign to me.

I finally broke down on Friday, exhausted physically and emotionally, and told poor Mr. Perfect I wanted to go home. Not that I wanted to leave him--I just wanted to go somewhere I didn't feel like such a stranger in a strange land. Somewhere my children were with us. How scared I was there was no such place for me to go. Sure--there is an empty, dark, cold house 700 miles away back in Boise I still own, but I can't go back there and there is no place yet where I feel comfortable, settled and organized here. That...that place has yet to be created and it's difficult knowing I don't hold the reigns in doing it as I have in creating the previous seven homes I've lived in. This is a shared home and a shared life and must be treated as such.

In the midst of all this, I had a little miracle happen that helped my perspective:

 After six weeks of a raging ear infection, nearly constant migraine-level pain, and almost complete deafness in my right ear, I finally got into an ear/nose/throat specialist. My biggest fear was that my ear drum had been so ravaged by the infection there may not be enough of my hearing left to save. But the doctor took a small vacuum and in the course of five minutes, cleared out all the gunk that had accumulated around my ear drum and...voila! I could hear again.

I actually cried. I listened to Mr. Perfect's voice, which I hadn't heard clearly since before Halloween, I listened to Christmas music, I listened to the sound of a crowded room where it didn't sound like all the voices were one giant echoing cacophony crashing about in my head-- and I wept tears of joy. 

How quickly things can change. When we feel that there is no hope, that we've done all we can do, that things will never get better despite our continued best efforts--they do. And they can. Miraculously.

So, right now, I feel I'm up against a wall (of teetering furniture and boxes..) and I really don't know how to resolve it. But I know I can. And that solution won't involve me getting things just like I want, or Mother Perfect getting them just how she wants them, or things being ideal for any of us--but I *know* we can find a happy compromise. A solution found when all things seemed hopeless... one that can bring as much joy as a sudden ability to hear clearly again. And we'll all be happy we decided to stick this mooshing out :)