Sense of place

My current 'hood

I really should be packing instead of blogging.  I have packed maybe a grand total of ten boxes (and that is probably being generous).  I probably have about 10,000 boxes to pack (give or take a thousand).  Not to mention just sorting through stuff before packing, like throwing away old clothes, shredding and recycling old bills I do not need to keep.  But somehow in my mind the work is compressed and could, potentially, be finished in a day.  Yeah, right. 

But this week I have been in that strange limbo world.  I am still living in my apartment but we have the keys to the new house.  We spent a good part of last weekend there doing some painting in Juliette's room.  And we couldn't bring ourselves to leave the lush garden and go back to the reality of packing. 

It is more than a physical limbo that I am in though.  This week was rather emotional having the last day of Juliette's school.  Somehow I found myself tearing up more than her.  We have both made good friends there, her with the kids, me with the parents.  And, as it always is, you don't know what you've got till it's gone.  Now I'm realizing how quaint and fairly well-run her  current school is.  It's not perfect, but the teachers have been good and kind.  Her new school will be much smaller with doubled classes (two grade levels in one class) and we hope she'll be happy there and that the quality of the education will be good.

Even though the move is just across town, to a suburb about ten minutes away, I find myself already getting nostalgic about the scenery in my current neighborhood.  I take a look at the white stone houses of downtown, the ornate details on doors and cobbled streets and realize these types of walks will be rarer now.  The proximity to the town's squares will no longer be on foot for me but now necessitate a bus or car ride.  I will have a slightly longer commute into work, Remi a shorter one. 

But we will have a garden, and that is a dream come true. And three bedrooms and much more storage to spread out all the junk we have accumulated during ten years (!) of marriage.  And the knowledge that our money is going to something that will one day truly belong to us (and not the bank). 

These are arguments that have very little weight with Juliette, who has been giving us a hard time since the reality of moving sunk in a few months ago.  Not seeing her friends on a nearly-daily basis as now is weighing on her.  One day she even started crying, which got me crying, too.  We try to tell her she will make friends easily, and that we had to do the same at certain times in our childhood. 

I can't really blame her.  When you're a child, your friends are your world.  School is your world.  And as my mom reminded me, she has only known this apartment in her life.  Things will be changing for all of us.  Hopefully in a few months we will all be on the same page about everything and each making friends and acquaintances in our new town.  But keeping up with the old ones, too.  Because moving doesn't have to mean forgetting.