I’m back from a short hiatus. We spent the weekend on the beach celebrating Father’s Day and I have just now gotten my bearings and settled back in to the normal routine. It was an absolutely gorgeous weekend that I will not soon ever forget.
I’m living my days lately in “lasts”. Our last visit to the choo-choo train, the carousel, our so beloved weekly trip to the farmer’s market down our street. Our last visit to the beach where he proposed, where we married, and now frolic on sand with our two children. I know that obviously these aren’t really lasts-of course we will be back, our families are here. But at least for the next for years we won’t do these things as a part of our normal routine. Our new routine will be drastically different in ways that I can only imagine. Our future reality is not something that I can wrap my head around even now, as we have 42 days left here in California (but whose counting?).
I started this blog to document the major adventure that we are embarking on and I need to detail these moments. Moments that would otherwise just be normal routine… moments that I will be aching for come August. I am normally the one that loves change; I love moving to new cities, new homes, new lifestyles. I adore the smell of the airport and the first whiff of the new air when you step off of the plane. I will admit that I am scared to take that first inhale of New York. I am scared that this change will affect my children adversely, but I am smart enough to know this move will be more than great for all of us in precisely every way that I fear the most.
I have hesitated writing this post because I simply didn’t think I could get through it. But might as well tackle this too and get it under my belt, right? My greatest fear is being half a world away from my mother and my sister- my best friends in the world. My children’s best friends in the world. Sometimes the only way I make it through the day. We’ve never really been apart and I don’t know how I’m going to live my life without them there with me in the flesh. Sorry Skype- you just ain’t gonna cut it. The relationship that my children have with them cannot be described in words except to say that they could easily replace me as the momma. They carry my children’s hearts within their own at every single moment and for that, there are no words. This will be one of the most difficult things I will ever endure. I am sickened at the thought of taking Bubba and Birdie away from Yiayia (Greek for Grandmother) and Bo (Thea, Aunt Bri, but Bubba calls her Bo). I am aware that this will make me a better mother, however, because I will be forced to try to replicate everything that they do for my children. Yes, I am one of the few that considers it an honor to “turn into her mother”. We-my family and I- should be so lucky.
I’m copying the recipes and the super potions that get the stains out. I’m watching the way that she cuts his sandwiches for him with the teddy bear cookie cutter, the exact amount of butter or jam that she uses because no matter how hard I try, Bubba never eats as much with me as he does when he is with his Yiayia. I’ll need to grow a mini garden (in NYC? IT CAN BE DONE) so that he can help me water it, and when he eats every last tomato I will smile and think of her. I’ll need every single craft project that Thea has (she is a preschool teacher) so that when we make paper crabs and glue runs all over the table I’ll think of her. But I cannot replicate the girls nights at the restaurant bars with one too many glasses of wine, or the Sunday night dinners in Yiayia’s kitchen.
There are new memories and traditions to be created, and even though they will be fewer and farther between they will happen and for that I am excited and grateful. I know this will be good for us all and I am welcoming those changes with hope. It’s just getting there that I am struggling with.
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