Auld Lang Syne
Hello from the other side?
I know that 2021 isn’t magically going to change the things we’ve been going through for the past 9-10 months but a fresh start always does feel good, even if it’s 100% theoretical.
In many ways this year did not deal me an exceptionally bad hand, and yet it still managed to completely knock me on my ass.
It started strong, with visits from friends and a nice long trip to New York that included a road trip to Virginia to see some of our favorite people. And then near the end of our trip, as we prepared to fly back, word of the virus went from nervous whispers to confirmed cases. We wiped our plane seats down with antibacterial wipes and made it home safely, hand sanitizer in our pockets.
We pulled Sophie out of her wonderful Montessori preschool in March, only two months after she started. It stung because we had just gotten into a routine and she was loving it and I was finally not anxious about leaving her somewhere 3 half-days a week.
I stopped teaching at Pure Barre Palo Alto for what I thought was a temporary amount of time, not knowing at all that my last class at the studio would truly be my last class.
Rob’s entire company was told to work from home until further notice and we started dreaming about the possibility of moving back to Charlotte. It only took a few weeks, but it felt like years before his boss announced that they would be allowing some employees to transition to permanent remote positions, and I started packing almost immediately.
The entire transition took way longer than we expected, and living for months with the possibility of moving but no actual confirmation sent me into a really weird and negative headspace. Times of uncertainty and transition are always pretty hard for me, so I really struggled.
Then I had a miscarriage.
We lay in bed for a few nights eating mint It’s-Its and watching Friends. People sent dinner.
Rob and I took Sophie to Monterey two times just to pick wildflowers. As homesick as I always was for the east coast, there is something so majestic and even healing in the face of the wild Pacific wind and waves. Seeing the coast always made me so happy to be in California. I stood on a cliff with Bixby Creek Bridge behind me, looked out at the ocean and breathed deep and thanked California for everything it had given us.
In that moment I felt completely broken and truly grateful at the same time.
My hair started falling out. It was a little at first, and then a lot, and I realized pretty soon that my lifelong alopecia areata may be progressing into something more aggressive. When we get settled in Charlotte, I told myself, things will be easier.
It became a mantra, not just for my hair loss, but to get through the summer: heatwaves and a broken AC paired with landlords who did not care to fix a thing. When the wildfires came, the air was so smokey that we couldn’t open windows anymore and the inside of our house got up to 86 degrees every afternoon.
Things will be easier.
We gave our landlords notice, hired a realtor, booked movers, and planned a cross-country road trip. Ender went to a six week board and train program while we packed up our lives and purchased a house in Charlotte over FaceTime.
We drove to Half Moon Bay and sat in my aunt’s backyard with my family like we had so many times before, this time all at separate tables. We drank wine and ate one more meal together, saying goodbye with masks on and without being able to hug each other.
One afternoon I felt a migraine coming on and took a just-in-case pregnancy test before popping my usual Excedrin. Two lines blinked back at me, California’s final gift to us before we left.
We packed up the dog and the toddler and drove across the country, masks on the dashboard and a box of snacks in the backseat. We ate a lot of fast food and slept in strange beds in every city. Some of the driving days were really long, but we got through it.
And now we’re back in Charlotte, still living through a pandemic but in a house that is ours, in the same time zone and within driving distance of so many friends and family that we hope we will only be able to see more of as the next few months go by.
If 2020 taught me anything, it’s that life can be terrible and wonderful at the same time. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking and stressful and joyful and totally worth it.
Sending you all the light and love and rest and perseverance on this New Year’s Day, from me and Rob and Sophie and Ender and our baby boy on the way.