Roadtrip

We just packed up our lives.  We’re moving from California to Nashville, TN.  BACKTRACK here.

Josh and I had a long road ahead of us.  We romanticized the idea of traveling the 1,300 miles to get to our girls on the way to moving to Nashville.  I mean, who doesn’t love the idea of a roadtrip?! 

Road TRIP!!!!  Tunes and snacks galore, not to mention the many mindless hours to just chill and see God’s creation.  It all seems so poetic until you are actually on the road and you just find yourself eating out of boredom and having to pee all the time.  Not exactly the pioneering paradise we dreamt about. 

I’ll admit, I was mostly clinging to my husband’s expectations.  This was actually my fourth time to drive cross-country, and so I knew the lack-luster feeling of just wanting to GET THERE.  As much as I tried to revive the Jack Kerouac in me, I grew anxious and annoyed with each mile, trying to summon my patience with beef jerky and twizzlers. 

We stopped at his folks in Arizona the first night.  That was emotional in and of itself, because it would be the last of the good-byes that fell into the category of “not-knowing-exactly-when-we-will-see-you-next” and I just hate that.  It’s always so much easier to say good-bye when you can at least tell yourself how long it will be until you say hello again.  But, we forged ahead, 6 hours down, and many more to go.

About 13 hours later we ended up in Tucumcari, NM.  We stayed at a crappy hotel (hey, I call ‘em like I see ‘em) where I’m pretty sure there was a coyote graveyard in the back and meth being sold in the ditch out front.  In other words, it was lovely.  But, we survived and showered, and got back on the road as soon as possible.  About 5 more hours into the next day, we got a flat tire on the moving trailer.

Now, let me tell you, if you are going to break down somewhere, you probably aren’t going to want it to be in a place named Hooker (Oklahoma).  But, seeing as we had no choice to the matter, we did break down there.  So, as we waited for Penske to come to our rescue, I climbed up into the moving truck and kept Josh and the cats company.

Ah, yes – didn’t I mention?  We were traversing with 2 CATS.  They were just as giddy about the long car rides as I was (okay, not even that much) and thrilled to be parked on the side of a windy highway where we were suddenly at a halt.  Ugh.  The only thing worse than sitting in a car and traveling at a slow pace is sitting in a car and not moving at all. 

But, we made it.  Penske came to our rescue, changed out the tire, and we were back on the road having lost only our patience and two hours of travel time.  All in all, we were grateful to be in one piece and keeping our cats alive.  Not only that, but we were inching our way closer to sweet reunion with our girls.

I’ve never been happier to see such silly, squealing girls.  They ran out to greet us, and it was like Christmas and my birthday all in one.  They looked bigger and louder and much more happy than I remembered them.  They molded like butter into my arms, and my aching heart that was so empty from all the good-byes in California was urgently bursting with completion. 

Our family was together.  Our family was whole again.  Our family was ready to embark on the final adventure towards our new life.

Nashville or bust.

Backtrack

It’s been too long since I’ve written.  I can always tell when it’s been too long because I start to second-guess myself and avoid the idea of writing and then stalling and stalling and stalling until the inevitable finally occurs.  I can tell it’s been too long when I start to wonder if I should, or if it’s worth it, or if I even need to…when, clearly, I can’t live without it.  So, here I am; enduring and persevering through the insecurities of getting back into the swing of a new normal.

In case you haven’t heard (or are stumbling upon this somehow) I just moved across the country.  Not just me, but my husband and two young daughters (and oh yeah, two cats) as well.  I’ll be rolling out several posts about how this all came about, how we did it, and what life consists of now. 

If you’ve been reading the blog regularly, then you might see a few changes coming.  I’m hoping to start posting more often, though possibly in shorter form.  I, maybe just like you, don’t have gobs and gobs of free time (if you are shrugging at this irrelevance to your own life, then perhaps this blog is not for you after all) and so, I’m hoping to work towards the art of brevity yet meet with you more often.  How does that sound?  (As always, flying by the seat of my jammie pants here.)

Anywho…us Pardys have recently trekked 2,000 miles from California to Tennessee, and are on this-side-of-the-brink of starting a brand, spanking new life.  Crazyville.  It’s still a little much for me to comprehend.

I don’t know where else to start except “move-out day”.  Boy, was it a humdinger.  I had just flown to Kansas to drop my girls off at my folks for a few days while (according to plan) I would fly back to California, load up our lives into a 16-foot Penske truck with my beloved, and haul east.  I had never been away from my girls for more than 24 hours before, so this was new territory for my emotions in a multitude of ways.

I believe this is what you call "to the gills"

Flying back to California was emotional enough.  It hit me upon my descent into LAX that this was, for the last time, my final flight “home to California”.  From this point forward, I would forever be considered a visitor instead of a resident, and that was difficult to accept. 

My husband picked me up from the airport and we set out to have dinner (disregarding that it was already midnight) at our favorite Thai restaurant in LA.  (Please, someone visit Toi Rockin Thai on Gardner and Sunset and send my regards to the Thai Spicy Spaghetti.)  We just had to.  It was our last chance.  Plus, our kids were 1,300 miles away, it just felt wrong to not fit in a date somehow!

When I got home for the last time and walked into our apartment, it became clear to me that I had entered a twilight zone of sorts.  This was not my home.  This was a series of rooms filled with memories and mere remnants of somewhat-recognizable objects.  My emotions were engaged with the location, but my senses were entirely confused by the surroundings.  Boxes and bare carpet.  Disassembled furniture.  Suitcases and cords.  This was a barren land of a life that was ending…and that life was ours, our California life together.  It was sad and weird and uncomfortable.  And it was just the final motivation I needed to force myself to forge through the next 24 hours.  No one would want to stay in that kind of uncomfortability for long.

I won’t relive it entirely.  I can’t.  Waking up the next day to a series of goodbyes and the sheer, physical labor of packing up a moving truck was too much for me to ever want to think about doing again.  It sucked, bottomline.  I had to put my best friends to work, packing and stuffing everything familiar into a giant box on wheels, and then hug them goodbye.  It’s hard to say which I went through more that day – duct tape or tears.  I wanted to take one last look at everyone and everything and engage all my senses into everything I saw so it would be impossible to forget.  I did the best I could.  I hope it was enough to remember.

And then.  Deep breath.  We left.

Tears streaming down my face, I looked out the back window of my car one final time, my sad friends waving and the sun glaring and my vision getting all foggy in my steamy glasses, and I pulled forward and out into the open road that suddenly looked entirely different to me.  The street I had lived on for so many years was now just the road out of town.  It was no longer home. 

Home was many, many miles away.  My heart was going to have to catch-up to it.

Dear California

Dear California,

I've been dreading writing this letter for some time now. But, here I am, alone on a plane flight home to you, and so I'm cornered with my thoughts (if only in effort to ignore the loud talking woman a couple rows up from me). Sigh.

California. You mean so much to me. You hold so much, so many memories, so many dreams that I watched and lived and breathed and loved. Ours is a romance never to be forgotten.

When I was in fourth grade, I remember looking up at the stars and thinking that it must be the most magical job in the universe to touch stars and see them up close. It must be the most magnificent job to be an astronaut then, I thought. But, I didn't want to be an astronaut. Not really. I did, however, want to be magnificent in some way. I thought about it for a while and decided that the best way to be an astronaut AND be anything else I ever wanted to try was to become an actress. After all, actors get to pretend to be all kinds of things, even astronauts! So that way I would get to be everything- and what's more magnificent than to be everything? So that was it. I wanted to be an actress, and to really do that, I would need to move to Hollywood and live in California. It was decided then, in my Kansas farm girl mind...I was meant to live in California.

If you know anything about me, then you know that once I get an idea in my head it doesn't die easily. So, then, this dream of you, California, forged on in the years to come. Maybe you didn't know I originally wanted to be a Hollywood starlet, and maybe you didn't know that that dream emerged due to my obsession with all things space related...but I did, and I was, and so there you go.

California, you've always welcomed me with open arms. Being raised in the middle of Kansas, I had preconceptions that you were full of wealthy and beautiful people who all lived on the beach and wore white bathing suits and sunglasses and went to Disneyland on lunch breaks. I supposed you had sunshine daily and everyone was busy and popular all the time and nobody really cared who was who until you were somebody worth knowing. Not all these stereotypes repulsed me, and certainly not all of them were found to be true. But, all in all, I can say that my adventures in and around you, California, have exceeded all my expectations.

California, you hold real, genuine, deeply thoughtful and poignant souls. You contain people who have shaped and molded not only my heart, but my spirit and mind as well. And I'm the better for it, no doubt. You will forever be the location where my favorite people in the universe were all born- the birthplace of my husband and my children.

California, your oceans and mountains and cities have brought a me such joys. My babies left footprints in your sand. My feet have sunk into the grains of your beauty, and yet you are the one leaving an impression on me. I've felt your earthquakes and experienced the fear and relief of your California fires. You remind me that you are a dangerous beauty, risky and seductive all the same. It should be no surprise you provide the world with so much mischief, drama, and entertainment.

California, you inspire me. My time here makes me look back in awe of how much God can bring about in such a raindrop's worth of time. How many people have invested in my life. How many prayers of others have provided direction and strength. How many changes that happened here have transformed me into the person I'm striving to become.

I may have been born and raised in Kansas; but clearly, I grew up in California. 
California, my time here has been challenging, lovely, intentional, joyful, and too short. If those are the same words I use when I look back at the end of my life and reflect upon my journey, I'll die a happy woman.

I will always love you, California. Please keep my dear ones here happy and safe. Please continue to provide worthwhile inspiration for those farm kids out there who are scared to enter into your mischief. Please don't drift off into the ocean (I still want to visit!)

Jesus loves you, California, and so do I. Maybe I was born in Kansas. Maybe I'll die someday in Tennessee. But, let it be known and never forgotten: I lived in California.

Thank you, my California. Don't forget me.

Emily

Toddlers on the Move

Today is my girls' last full day in California.  Ugh.  While on one hand they are excited to get to their "new home" and see what all this packing fuss has been about, they are also in a weird flux of sadness and discomfort.  It's hard enough for me to process all that is happening right now, so I can only imagine how this drama is interpreted through the lens of toddler-goggles.

I'm no expert in raising children.  I can't tell you what will work best for your child in these circumstances.  But, in talking with other moms and doing a bit of research and learning a LOT through prayer, trial, and error, I have come to find out a lot about living through this massive change with two toddlers.  I've decided to share this experience here as tips on how I've gone about this - in hopes that maybe it will help you come up with your own ideas for how to intentionally go about introducing big changes to your own child - whether that's trying a new vegetable or packing up all their toys and moving 2,000 miles.  For what it's worth, here's how I've handled the last several weeks with my girls.

1. Information.
My daughters are 3 and a half and 22 months, so most of these regard Matilda, my eldest daughter who is just old enough to take in what's happening.  However, both of my girls do best when they are prepped with more information rather than not enough.  In other words, while some parents can sneak out of the house on a date night and their youngster swimmingly adapts to the babysitter's authority...my girls would wage World War III.  They do much, much better if I spend the whole day prepping them with info on how the night will pan out.

That being said, when I first started telling friends about our big move to Nashville, I caught myself constantly talking past my children.  I would whisper in conversation with friends or avoid eye contact with Matilda as I told others of our plans.  I feared introducing the subject too soon might be too confusing or cause undue drama too far in advance.  But, soon I started to see that she was very contemplative and starting to shut down if I "talked around her" too much.  She was left out, and she knew it.  She didn't know what she was being left out of, she only knew that she didn't like the feeling, and I began to sense a wall being put up.  Nobody likes being talked around, even a toddler.  And maybe I wasn't giving her enough credit.  So, we decided to tell her early.

Here's my tip:  Talk early, talk often, talk calmly.  Just because there may be a lot of emotions tied to a change doesn't mean you have to deal with all those emotions at once.  Telling Matilda about the move weeks in advance gave us time to answer her questions (again and again and again) and talk about it positively and thoroughly long before boxes and duct tape scattered our living room.  Erring on the side of too much information also allowed me the time to process how she was understanding everything.  I would hear her relay the information to her sister and then began to see how she was taking it all in and interpreting it.

2.  Process
Figuring out how to get my toddler to process all this new information was another story.  I prayed and prayed to know how to explain to a three-year-old that she would say goodbye to the only home she's ever known, all her friends here, and yet her family would remain intact and there would be safe and familiar things to surround her on this new adventure.  How would she understand that some things stay and some things go?  How would she feel secure and adapt?  How could I make this inevitably difficult experience as manageable as possible?

Then, one night, I got the idea (thank you, Lord) to make a photo book in story form for her that would explain the entire journey.  The plan for our move is that I will fly out with the girls and take them to my parents house in Kansas.  Then, after a couple days of familiarizing them there, I will fly back to California alone, and help my husband pack up the moving truck and forge ahead via road trip!  We will meet up with the girls in Kansas, pick them up, and continue another day and a half on to Nashville.  Whew!  (You can see why I value your prayers so much!)

This is a LOT to understand for a little brain!  So, I wanted a consistent story.  Something that she could see visually and hear again and again until it stuck.  Luckily, God created toddlers with an incredible ability to soak up information in this way!  I gathered photos off Facebook and the internet, wrote a short story of our exact journey from here to Nashville, and even included photos of the outside of our new home.  Yes, it may seem a bit extreme.  Yes, it took a few hours to throw together.  But, after reading it again and again, I can tell you it has been totally worthwhile.  Now, Matilda reads it to Daphne and can tell you how the whole journey is laid out ahead of her.

We will find out for sure in the next few days just how well she has absorbed that information.  I know that there will still be questions about where her toys and friends are for weeks to come.  I know that she will have confusion no matter what.  I know that I can't buffer everything so that it makes perfect sense to her.  I know that she is a toddler.  :)  But, my goal isn't to downplay what is happening or avoid tears or questions.  My goal is to help her understand and help her feel understood.

3. Closure
Finally, tomorrow as we pack the remainder of their little belongings into a suitcase and blow kisses into the California sun, I hope to bring my girls a tiny sense of closure for the chapter in their lives they spent here.  I want them to not only say goodbye to their friends, but their rooms and their little yard too.  Sadness is okay.  Sadness is allowed.  Sadness is a perfectly normal response to change, and I want them to witness it in me and see that it is something honest and human and expressible.  You don't have to be sad or cry necessarily, but it's not an emotion that needs to be suppressed either, and I just want them (yes, even at this very young age) to feel the security of knowing sadness is okay.

One reason I think this is important is that it allows them the ability to recognize the best thing about sadness:  that it is temporary.  There is incredible security in learning that while sad things are inevitable in life, hope exists.  It is very sad to leave California, but with that change comes much excitement and anticipation of joy in things to come.  Closure is sort of an impossible thing to actually discuss with a toddler, but not impossible to demonstrate.  My girls watch and imitate me to a frightening degree, and so it's important for me to have them witness my own process in taking the time to say goodbye, be sad, and then be excited and hopeful and happy again.  I have complete confidence that God will use this experience in all our lives to remind us of how He protects and provides for our family.


I'm amazed at the resiliency of children.  I love their wild questions and hopeful courage.  I love that they hug without abandon and wholeheartedly just feel.  As usual, I often learn more from them than I think they gain from me, and that is always an awesome and unexpected blessing.

It's gonna be a tricky journey.  I don't know if there is any easy way to force adaptation on a person, no matter how welcome the change may be.  We're in transition, and all I can be is trusting in my faithful God who continues to lavish grace on my life.  Thank you, Jesus, for leading us in this crazy life!

Now, if only they made bubble-wrap for the heart.