Moving

I really dislike moving. I don't like change, and I don't like mess...and that pretty much sums up the moving process. So while I wasn't entirely surprised when our landlord informed us he was going to sell the house (a suspect story, by the way) and that we had just 30 days to be out (and by his frequent check-ins to make sure we really are going to be able to gone within that time frame, I think he would have loved to have given us less time if legally allowed), I still wasn't happy about it. In addition to the usual upheaval caused by a move, we had absolutely no idea where we would go, we were entirely unprepared financially for such a transition, and we had even less than than our allotted 30 days to find it and pack, as we were going out of the country for entire week this month.

And then...I really disliked the idea of moving because it forced me to confront something I really preferred tightly packed away. When we moved to Ohio, we chose to rent this house, with plans for the house we owned in South Carolina, and even further plans to buy something here. And none of that worked in the least the way we had planned, effectively stripping us of a number of choices. But as long as we were here, in this arrangement that we chose, I could forget for long stretches of time that we no longer had the control - or perhaps just the illusion of control - that we had once had. Leaving here meant looking for another rental, not buying the house we had hoped, and it would be a glaring reminder of what we've lost, and of a part of our future that is daunting and uncertain. 

And of course with that comes lots of anxiety and other unpleasant feelings I'd just rather not experience. But, like it or not, we had to do this thing, in band-aid-ripping fashion. Thankfully, Dave is a take-charge, get-it-done sort of guy, so he dove into the task and looked and looked....and looked and looked and looked....until he found something that seemed promising. It all came together, and God provided in all kinds of ways we never could have seen coming. As it turns out, we're really excited about the new place. 

With that surge of excitement and promise, we got serious about packing everything up. I like to do things in an orderly fashion (even if it only seems orderly to me), so I gave myself a ten box a day quota, which I've been meeting for the most part. And in filling those ten boxes a day, I've tried to pack them in the way that I want them to be organized when we get to the new house, which has involved sorting through things carefully, and throwing away a great deal...and it's made a terrific mess. It hasn't seemed like any kind of system at all, I'm sure. But whether it's having confronted my biggest hidden anxiety - the house situation itself - or just having more time each day (moving with big kids is HUGELY different than moving with mostly little oens) to pay attention to what I'm doing, I've been able also to confront all these piles of things I just haven't before. Sometimes my sense of organization is actually SO great that I just get paralyzed when something seems to overwhelming, or if I can't do it the way that I want, so much so that it actually looks like the opposite of organized. But it's just that I haven't been able to face it, and it just lurks in the corners and the closets, and under the beds...

In fact, we had a garage sale yesterday, to purge the house even further of uncessary things, and as the boys were gathering things to put out, I still felt those little twinges of paralysis.. The boys asked if they could sell their GeoTrax train sets, because they never play with them anymore, and I started to say no. I've been keeping those carefully arranged, hoping and planning to get new batteries for all the trains, and maybe get some extra track pieces, and find the instructions so we can get all the sets put together the way they were when we got them. My stomach knotted up just thinking about it, which, I realized, is exactly what happens every time I see the boxes holding all that silly train stuff. No one cares about it that way but me. And it's like having boxes of anxiety sitting around and being carried from house to house. 

I realized further that so much of our stuff is boxed up that way. My closet is full of anxiety, guilt, and feelings of failure. I paid too much for those shoes ten years ago, so I should hang on to them. Someone gave me that sweater, so I can't get rid of it. I hate those jeans and never wear them, but what if I can't buy new ones later? My school room is drowing in last year's stuff, because we didn't do what I thought we should have, and maybe I should try to catch us up, have that grammar book finished, do a more thorough evaluation of those papers I don't have to time to look through...

Or it WAS all that way. I told the boys they could sell the trains. I threw out half the things in my closet. I put away last year's school books and threw away all but a few of the papers. My ten-box a day quota is slowly but surely capturing the things we need and truly want. And the mess is slowly diminishing. 

Perhaps, too, the anxieties and fears boxed up in all the nooks and crannies will diminsh, too.

Another Quizzing Post - Sort Of

I don't think I've ever gone three entire months without posting something. Usually, after some time being away, I say that I haven't been short of ideas, just time - but this time, it really has been a dry spell. A very, very dry spell. For whatever reason(s), I was really burnt out towards the end of our school year, which often happens, I know, but this time I felt like I had been burned to a crisp. Just completely fried. And I suppose that's what happened to all creative thought, too- burned up, dried out. I keep repeating those kinds of phrases because I don't know how else to describe it. I haven't been depressed or frantic; this kind of "burned out" has been the neutralizing kind. Just fried. I think I said that already.

So moviving on.

I didn't know how to fix it, and I was a little alarmed that a six-week break from all things school hadn't renewed me in the least. The idea of even planning for the next year made me want to crawl into a hole and hide. I had originally planned to resume studies when Dave and I returned from taking a quiz team to International Bible Quizzing finals in Canada, but as that week approached, I had done absolutely nothing to put away things from the previous school year and to get ready for the next. And then there was the fact that our landlord had cheerfully told us we had thirty days to be out of our house, so it didn't appear that anything was going to be done anyway.

So I poured myself into preparing for Internationals and all that entailed - and from the very moment we checked in, it was a little like returning home. I have said often enough here how much I love Bible quizzing and how important it was to me as a quizzer. It's important to me now for all those reasons and more - because now I have children who are involved. At any rate, at the first coaches' meeting, I got a little teary-eyed - the first sign of something other than crispy, burned-out dryness. And the next morning, I went for a run, and made my way down to the lake, and cried. Not for sadness or for joy - just for release.

A few more tears of all kinds found their way out that week. It was like being in a healing coccoon, and yet not a completely sheltered one. It was invigorating and inspiring - the way Bible quizzing has always been for me. Oh - and there were the quizzers, too. I'm sure they had a great week, too, since it was for them, after all.

And so I returned to the reality of packing for a place we don't have yet - although I've been sick since being home, and have had not the slightest amount physical energy to do anything that needs to be done. (By the same token, though, I haven't had any energy to be anxious, either, so perhaps it's a blessing. ) But, while this post was neither very creative nor particularly encouraging, I think there are signs I'm beginning to emerge from that dried up place.

One is that I'm in full throttle for quizzing - so if you live anywhere near me, beware. I believe in quizzing, for so many reasons. I believe in it for kids, but it still does so much good for me even now! I wrote in January about the cost of quizzing, and whether it's worth it - Adding Up the Cost. Internationals costs even more, in both time and money, and yet it's still worth every last penny, every last second, if for no other reason than that it just bathes these kids - and the coaches and officials with them - in God's Word, straight up, pulling no punches. That can't fail to have effect, even -especially? - for tired homeschooling mamas who don't know what their problem is or how to fix it.