slingshot

      Every time I look at anything in my house these days, my first thought is "Is that coming with us?" It's not a quiet or patient question, but rather the type of thought that rises above the background noise of all other thoughts in an abrupt, demanding tone. It seems there must be a small (and even more obnoxious) version of myself sitting with her arms folded just under my pituitary gland in the middle of my brain, who's full-time job it is to barrage me like a broken record with this question. She seems to enjoy it. I, on the other hand, find that as I go about my daily life, look at quite a few objects in my house on any given day and find it somewhat paralyzing at times to be constantly reeling for answers with every turn of my head. That being said, does it sound like I'm complaining? I'm not. It's that little voice that has propelled me into quite a bit of productivity this summer and nudged a great deal of useless crap out of my life. Mostly, the things we've rid ourselves of have met one of two fates: Being hurled off the back of the pickup into a mountain of other bedraggled objects in similar states of rejection or  handed off to a Goodwill employee who inevitably ends the transaction by saying "Thank you for changing lives with the power of work!" at which point I cringe, pause awkwardly, consider asking them not to say that, consider giving them a genuine compliment in return, and inevitably just smile gracelessly and slam the truck door.
      All this is to say...we're hitting the road. After a couple months of failing to sell our house our restlessness had turned to anxiety and our anxiety was threatening to plunge into doubt. In such a state, it's easy to be overwhelmed by small inconveniences and that is where I found myself one evening as I was being swarmed by fruit flies while cleaning the kitchen. I marched over to my next door neighbor's house to borrow some plastic wrap for the making of fruit fly traps, ran into her good friend who was there for a visit, and the rest is history. She'll be renting our house and moving in at the end of next week. To say I think things have worked out with the house in the best possible way would be an understatement. I'm practically exuberant with relief and gratitude.
      The same day we finalized our rental plan I submitted for, interviewed for, was offered and accepted a job in Virginia. It felt like we'd been slowly being pulled back in a slingshot while blindfolded and suddenly had the blindfold torn off just in time to be launched. In short, shit is getting real. The job in Virginia starts October 17th, and we'll be arriving the day before. I'll be working with patient populations essentially the same as I'm accustomed to, and the hospital has a great reputation with travelers, several of whom have renewed their contract several times on the unit I'll be working on. In the travel nursing world, that's a pretty good sign. I've finagled my way into a family owned campground that mostly just hosts tent-campers. It's almost an hour from where I'll be working, but the price is right, the campground is beautiful and the owners are a couple who live on a farm just down the road. Not only do they live on a farm, but they live on a farm with GOATS. And not only do they live on a farm with goats, they have lots of pictures on their campground facebook page of campers interacting with said goats. We'll be just south of the Shenandoah National Forest and just east of Washington-Jefferson National Park. We're already planning our weekend getaways from our already-gotaway life. The kids will take swim lessons and maybe rock climbing lessons as well. The local farmers market has been around since 1783. Wait...what?! In 1783 the area that is now Lansing was still a densely forested area that wouldn't know any European settlers for another 53 years.
     All in all, we're a bit frenzied and a bit disorganized. For instance, Michael accidentally packed up every single item one normally drinks liquid out of in the entire house. No cups, no mugs, no jars. Good thing I bought that cutesy 'pillow wrap' yesterday that says "Life is an adventure" on it so I can stare at it as a meditative reminder while sipping soy milk out of a soup bowl tomorrow morning.

Cheers to that.