A Fresh Start

Our (current) house, as seen on Google spy-cam

Well there’s a big reason I haven’t posted for the last nearly-two-weeks. I’ve been a wee bit busy and preoccupied because…We’re moving!

The contract isn’t signed yet, but the lawyers are reviewing it, and already our current house is a box-filled, partly denuded version of itself as we de-clutter, de-junk and prepare to de-part, hopefully in July, depending on how long it takes us to sell our place. We’ll be putting it on the market in a few weeks.

We’re not going far; just to the next town north. Our new house is less than ten miles from our current one, about a fifteen-minute drive. It’s not that much bigger,  but it has some creature comforts that we don’t have now and that have always been on my wish list: A fireplace. A driveway. (Oh, how we will not miss fighting for parking spots on the street in the winter….) A big screened-in porch. Trees in the yard. Long-term, we feel like the schools will be a better fit for the girls. We belong to the UU church there, and have friends in the community. So it doesn’t feel like a huge change in some ways.

I still have some mixed feelings about our moving, which I won’t go into now (hint: much less diversity) but overall, it feels like the right decision for us. Even when we bought our current house, we planned to move within five or six years (we made it to eight), and this new house is probably where we’ll be for the next twenty, barring any unforeseen, unfortunate circumstances.

What’s notable — and probably not coincidental — is the timing. We’ll be moving right when Clio’s treatment ends. I think the subconscious reasons for this are twofold, and interrelated.

First, the idea of a big distraction from the worry and anxiety of the end of treatment is definitely appealing on some level.Second, there is appeal to the idea of a fresh start. The house we live in now is the first home Alastair and I bought; it’s where our babies were born and grew into beautiful children. But it’s also where we have endured a nightmare; where our life branched off into a completely unexpected and unwanted direction. When we awake from this strange dream, we can build our “new normal” in a new place. (Without totally letting go of the old, of course; we’ll still be within striking distance of our dear friends, our home city, our work, and our favorite haunts. Not to mention the hospital and clinic, where we’ll still go from time to time.)

But there is also a lot of sadness tangled up in all of this, and honestly there’s a part of me that wonders if it’s too much change all at once.

There are so many sweet and precious memories in this house we live in now — even ones from the past two years, while we’ve been on this crappy little boat trip: It has been my cradling Clio on the couch when she’s sick with steroids and chemo house, and my sleeping with Elsa in my bed while Alastair and Clio are six miles away at the hospital house. Our crafts at the dining room table with Gail from Our Space house.

But it will also always be my finding Clio on the couch having a seizure house. And my kitchen counter filled with medications house. And my accidentally OD-ing on my medications and traumatizing my kids house. My crying in the middle of the night thinking about what could happen house.

So we prepare to make a fresh start somewhere else, without the weight of cancer in our lives. And I’m excited, but nervous and sad, too. (“Sad.” What a flaccid word for such a complicated emotion.) It’s hard to leave this place we’ve fondly called home for the past eight years, and the community we’ve come to feel connected with.

In the meantime: Anyone want to buy a spacious, 3 bedroom + office and playroom house on the Somerville / Medford line, full of memories and love?