New Normal

Less than three weeks ago I didn’t know that moving my family was even a possibility, but here we are, living in Tennessee.

It’s very surreal.

Tate’s company has put us up in a nice three bedroom house with a deck and a yard.  We are nestled amongst million dollar homes that overlook the lake, though our house is definitely NOT of the million dollar variety.  I’m grateful that we’re not living in an apartment and that we are living rent free until we purchase a home.  However, this nice three bedroom house is in an area inhabited mostly by retirees and is a good 30-45 minutes from shopping and CIVILIZATION.

I’m having a lot of trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that my family and I no longer live in Indiana, but instead I live in amongst retirees in Tennessee.

Since finding out just under three weeks ago about our impending move, my mind has been occupied with the endless details of moving.  I hadn’t allowed myself to think about what it would be like to LIVE again, in the new normal we have to carve out for our family.

My inlaws, who should be sainted or knighted or something, had spent the past week helping me prepare and move.  Without them I don’t think that I could have coped with packing my children’s toys and clothes and driving away from our home in Indiana.  They left to return home yesterday and all day I felt this huge black emptiness.   Way out in retirement land with nary a park or a FRIEND nearby, I feel lonely and isolated.

Frankly, the new normal sucks.

Bitterness about this move continues to creep into my thoughts.  I feel so angry that we are having to find our normal again, after having just found it.  Living in temporary housing, using someone else’s dishes and pots, sleeping in someone else’s bed, showering in someone else’s (carpeted…ew!) bathroom is not what I had in mind for a normal life.

I realize it’s only been ONE day on the quest for normal.  Tate told me last night that despite my assertion over and over that I WOULD be in a HOME by Thanksgiving, there would be no way for us to close on a house anytime before mid-December.  We are at the mercy of our relocation company whose timeline is not the same as ours.

It has to get better, I know.  But when?

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I apologize for yet another post about moving, heavy on the whining, light on the funny.  Soon I hope to get my funny back.  If you’re lucky, I’ll post some pictures of the horrifying lovely floral decor in our temporary house.  Because, um, WOW.