The move was not as terrible as it could have been. That is to say, when I set aside the fact that I was trotting only a third of my not-so�neatly packed townhouse to a cold northern town where an unknown fate of classes awaited me, we got a lot of help and it was a nice thing to have at a time when we need all the help we could get.
My dad came over to help us fix a leaky faucet (�The problem is your hot water is on the left� �Huh? The hot water is always on the left!� �Oh.�) and then loaded up his mini-van with all our breakables and electronics (�You want me to bring the LCD TV into the house so it wont freeze? Why?�) Dwayne�s parents drove down on Saturday (5 hours) and we loaded up Grandpa�s Big Red Truck (to hear Julia say it, the capitalization is almost a given). Amid a stress-filled flurry of �You want to take that?� and �Did we put the table legs in with the table? What do you mean you don�t know?�, the truck filled to capacity and his parents left again to return the 5 hour path they had just come down. My father took the loaded mini-van home and told me that he would call to let us know when they were leaving so we could synchronize our trips.
Elena woke up at a cheery 5:30am and we decided that since the girls were up, we would just get on the road early. We meandered through the house, pushing boxes upon boxes into some reasonable facsimile of order in the heart of disorder and jammed the last bit of �essential� stuff into the tiny Echo. Wedging the kids in was our last bit of business before leaving our townhouse behind as the sky twinkled from the black of night to the hazy blue of impending dawn. It was hard not to turn back and dump out the car, announce that we had changed our minds and we wouldn�t be leaving the comforting familiarity of home after all. But we drove on and as we reached the outskirts of Edmonton, I felt a bit of a pang.
What was I thinking? I had a job, it was true, but what that job consisted of, I hadn�t any clue. Dwayne was now unemployed and though the prospects of work are exponentially higher than anywhere else in the country, it was scary to suddenly be without the cushion of his comfortably easy job. I didn�t have a place to live where I would feel comfortable scratching my armpits and grumbling at the kids. I was going (dah, dah, daaaah) to live with my in-laws. How was this a good plan? The road ahead looked long, bleak and frightening.
I fumbled a bit in the car, trying to settle into a niche for the drive; turning on the last strains of the old radio stations before we drove out of range; sorting out snacks and drinks as the kids snoozed in the back seat. We hit the pit stops just long enough to pop out and stretch our legs, have a pee and then jump back on the road. We pulled into town (4.5 hours thanks to good road conditions and a bit of a heavy foot) around noon on Sunday. We got to the house, unloaded everything and loafed around, trying to set stuff up but feeling a bit too tired to focus on anything in particular. I hung up my work clothes and tried to get myself in a mindset where I could believe that I was actually going to start work the very next day.
My parents came up behind us, a few hours later, since they actually drive the posted speed limit and had leisurely stops along the way. We unloaded the van and had a somewhat awkward visit with both sets of parents. My mother suggested that we call to look at a condo and we took a look but it didn�t quite fit with what we wanted from it and there was some suggestion that it was water-damaged anyway. After a hasty goodbye, my parents set back on their way home. It felt so weird to think that both sets of parents had driven back and forth between the respective cities and though we were so thankful they did, I still thought it was borderline crazy on that terrible highway.
We fell into bed that night, adjusting to the idea that it wasn�t Christmas or Easter or any other �just for a few days� living arrangement. This was the real deal and, man, I don�t think I was ready to accept it easily.
8:02 p.m. - 2006-01-28