I was at dinner with my husband tonight and noticed that hey, this was the first night in I can’t remember how long that I haven’t been totally exhausted by dinnertime. In fact, I feel pretty much normal, and I’m not scaring myself when I look in the mirror anymore. Awesome.

We’ve been taking it easy, partly because he’s crippled, but partly because I had reached a point of medical exhaustion, if that makes sense. My body and mind were screaming for rest, loud and clear. The last time I can recall being in such a state was with a colicky newborn. Yep, that bad.

We did take on a lot before this move, which was already especially stressful because of the teenager’s school situation, but there were two factors that really pushed it over the edge.

One was my husband’s injury–he is normally a lot more helpful! Really, we’ve had a pretty good system over the years, relatively speaking–and by “relatively” I mean he actually gets paid for all the work he puts into every move, but I digress….

The other factor was it being a move from the States to overseas after seven years in one place. Man, that sh** is complicated. Mortgages; rentals; cars to sell, ship, or otherwise dispose of; that whole USDA pet thing; junk coming out of the walls (or so it seems); utilities to cut off, move-out cleaning, and at least twice as many material goods to deal with as overseas because you’ve got the storage stuff on top of HHE and UAB.  I am getting a headache just writing about it!

Never again. Post-to-post, maybe. But States to post–forget it!

Oddly enough, I am not finding it to be emotionally that difficult to leave. This is probably because I’m pretty sure I’m coming back before too long (the husband is close to retirement). And, it’s so easy to stay in touch with people now that goodbyes just feel different. When we first went overseas, with no email, and dodgy, expensive telephone communication, goodbyes were really goodbyes. Almost like wakes, at times. Now, it’s more like “see ya'” on Facebook/Skype/email/whatever.

Both my kids have already left the country: one is in college and on a school trip to Europe. The other left with his grandparents at exactly the right time: two days after school ended and the morning after his friends threw him a surprise goodbye party. That’s the way to do it! So, the point is, as a Mom, I’m not doing that thing I usually do in which I soak up all my kids’ stress about moving. I hate that thing. Really hate it. In fact, this time, it might have just about done me in!

So, looking on the bright side here, this may have been the move from hell, but at least I can relax for a few days in between packout and flyout. Just a few little errands, but otherwise we can lie around watching TV, go to movies, live large on per diem by eating out in the (very pleasant) town center every night and generally be boring old farts without even having to worry about keeping the cat entertained–much less anyone else *cough*

Yeah, I think I may finally be coming up for air.