Moving

Well, we close on our new house on Monday. I wish I had more than just the books packed. I am lacking in the motivation department. Plus, we are moving about six blocks so I can't seem to justify "packing" everything. Why wrap all my dishes in newspaper and then have to wash them all just to take them on a 5 minute car ride? So I think I will wait until Sunday to really start getting things together. We weren't planning on getting a truck. We were just going to take the seats out of the van. It is big enough for everything but the couch, and we had big plans for that including bungee cord, rope, one of those orange flags and back streets. But it seems all our well-tuned plans are coming to an end...

Ninety-nine percent of the time I don't mind that Luke and I don't have a lot of friends. I have a lot of philosophy surrounding married-life and social-life that are neither here nor there, but we certainly make do without a bustling social scene. Enter Moving Day.

We have no one to help us move. It is just Luke and I hauling and carrying all our furniture, all by ourselves. No family, no friends, no neighbors. Just us. When Luke interviewed for this teaching position, they told him a lot about the "community of teachers." They told him lovely stories about how they all pitched in to help each other out. A whole crew of teachers showed up to move the Junior High principal to her new house. They take care of each other here. Well, here we are one year later, and I have met just one, single solitary colleague of Luke's. She is fantastic. Unfortunately, she and her family are out of town. I once met Luke's principal at the High School...We ran into them at K-Mart. It was all very "Oh, you must be..." And "How nice to..." And then a lot of awkward standing and then a lot of walking away quickly. We have met no friends through church. I have made a whopping total of three women friends who have kids. None of their husbands seem keen on social interaction with us as a couple, and not a one of them volunteered to help carry the damned sofa. I also have no one to watch the kids during this process. I thought I did. It didn't work out. And then we asked one of Luke's students who happened to be working at a store the other day, and she happens to be off this week and she said that she "dug our kids" and would watch them. Later when I talked to her about it, she said it sounded okay, but if she couldn't her friend's sister liked kids and could probably watch them. And as much as I like the idea of relying on this girl's friend's sister whom I have never met to take care of my two children under the age of two, I have much doubt that any of it will work out...

Remember when I said I was not a freak? Maybe I am. I really don't seem to be able to find friends. I really don't seem to be able to keep them. A lot of people I know seem unreliable and, frankly, kind of jumpy by the very idea of a good solid friendship with me. I feel used a lot. And occasionally ,I feel really, really lonely. Like the kind of lonely that makes you want to shed a single tear...An Indian crying about litter kind of cry. But really, when the times in your life come up that you really need someone, and there is no one to be found...that's depressing. My closest friends live in Michigan, Texas, Oklahoma. I do sometimes wonder when I became incapable of making good friends where I am. I am in this sickly time-warp where all the great friends I have, I made a seven years ago. What's a gal to do?

So, none-the-less, we will be rolling up our sleeves starting Monday and we will make it work somehow. It might take us two weeks to move, but we'll make it happen. I thought buying this house was going to be this awesome thing that made me feel all grown-up and successful. But really, the last week has been bittersweet, at the very, very best.