Stuff

We have less than five weeks until we fly back to the U.S., and less than four weeks until the movers arrive on our doorstep to pack up our worldly possessions. I have done. . .nothing, unless folding the clean laundry and worrying count as "packing." Now that we truly are in our waning days, I am finding that I more often than not have a pit in my stomach.

I am not worried about the move, per se. I'm excited to be done with my job here (I am currently finding my job to be particularly vexing, but that's another blog post; suffice it to say I will be happy to leave it). We have a month off when we get home, before I have to start work in the States, and I'm excited to visit friends and family. I'm excited to be moving back to the States, to a city where we will know loads of people. I'm looking forward to the job I'll be doing in the U.S.. It's just. . .there is so much to do between now and then, and so many decisions to be made. It's causing me anxiety.

The hard part is the sorting. I really shouldn't complain about the move itself, because we have movers. It's the deciding and the weeding out that I find so troubling. We have to decide what to take in our suitcases, first of all. We need everything for that month we will be home. Plus, that is all we will have with us for when I first start work, so I need work appropriate clothes, too.

Then, I have to figure out what we'll need with us for our time in the U.S., because we are not headed back permanently. We're only back for a little less than a year, and then we head to South America. Much of what we have with us will be shipped directly there, because there is no point in moving twice. That means figuring out what clothes we need to keep with us for SB as she grows. I think it will basically mean everything, because she is growing rapidly! She is months ahead of where Miss M was at this point.

But the hard part is the weeding out of clothes--mine, and T's, and the kids'. That carries with it a whole other pressure. I loathe getting rid of stuff on a good day. I am that "maybe I'll use it someday" woman, who hates to throw anything away just in case I might need it at some point. I save the pants that don't fit, because maybe I'll gain weight or lose weight and I will need them. (While I was typing this, T just came downstairs with a giant pile of clothes that I asked him to go through and he wants of get rid of all of it. . .which drives me insane, because some of it is perfectly good stuff, and he just wants to get rid of it because he wants to buy new stuff.) It's exponentially worse, though, when it comes to the kids, for entirely different emotionally-charged reasons.

I'm just not ready to let any of the girls' things go. I'm not ready to say "we're done family building." I'm not ready to close that door. It makes me feel old and sad and broken to say "we're done." At the same time, I also can't imagine having another child. I wish I were younger. I wish I felt like I had another pregnancy in me. I felt so rotten in those weeks after SB was born and it took me so long to get my body back together that it's hard for me to imagine going through a pregnancy and delivery again. Yet it's also hard for me to imagine that there will NOT be the possibility of a third child, a third happy addition to our family. So I am in this impossible place, where I can't give up this stuff, and yet it feels ridiculous to keep it. It's not like I can just stash it in the basement and think about it some other day. I am moving to a different continent. . .twice in the next year.

I always thought that if we had a family, we would have more than one child. I really wanted more than one, and we were blessed with Miss M and then SB. Before I was pregnant, during my pregnancy with Miss M, during my pregnancy with SB, I always thought that two was my number. While I was pregnant with each of them, I thought that I would eventually reach this place where I felt content with the two kids, where I was comfortable with our decisions, where I was just DONE. I really thought that I would just know. But I didn't get to that place after SB was born. Or at least, I'm not there yet. If I had six more months, or a year, or two years more, perhaps I'd get there. Perhaps I just need more time. But I am moving in five weeks. Less than five weeks. I need to make decisions about all of this stuff NOW. I don't have more time. Tick, tick, tick. . .

On top of all of this, I know pregnant people who could really, really use my stuff. I have three close friends here who are either expecting, or have newborns. I am 90% sure I will leave the baby swing and the bouncy seat with one of them, in fact. For whatever reason, I am not attached to those two things.

But the clothes feel different. They feel more personal. I have pictures of Miss M in the clothes, and compare them to the pictures of SB in the same outfits. They are in good shape. Many of the clothes are beautiful, and I love them. I would be delighted to have a third child wear them (in my head, my third child is also a girl, although of course we'd be delighted with a boy). This is hard. Ugh. . .anxiety.