I figure I had better take this opportunity to write, because I may be an illusive creature until after November 1. There may be quick updates, but we are scheduled to close on the house October 20, and will start moving in as soon as that's in the bag. We have a trip to Denver for chemo and a lumbar puncture October 21 (that is, if Daniel's blood work drawn on the 20th clears us to start his next phase the 21st), then we plan to come back and do as much moving as is possible until we need to hit the road for Tahoe for Auntie Rochelle and Uncle Don's wedding. (In our family, you inherit the title "Aunt", but you can earn the title "Auntie". I guess Uncle has no such distinction.) The 23rd and 24th are wedding related activities, then we drive home the 25th and 26th, and Bobby goes back to work. We have to have our rental house completely cleaned, repaired and vacated by the 31st. At some point, when Bobby has time, we will make a trip back to Kansas for the rest of our stuff, which has been sitting at the farm for a year now.
Has it really been a year since we moved out here? Our rental agreement says it has. Our baby, six months old today, says so as well. I was fourteen weeks pregnant, barely looking fat, when we rented this place. The fall colors in the back yard are an indication as well. Last winter felt sooo long. Can we really be heading into another one? Our summer was, to say the least, a little disappointing. Between Bobby's erratic work schedule and Daniel's illness, we did almost nothing we had planned to do. I'm not complaining, because the alternative, not having Daniel with us, is unthinkable. At the rate he was fading seven months ago, his treatment is the only reason he is in our lives right now. But we have done a lot of telling ourselves, in the last year, that this is temporary. The job, the illness, the isolation, it WILL get better. Some day soon.
We took a quick trip to the Denver zoo this morning because the rest of this fall, starting next Tuesday, will either be incredibly hectic or we will be on house arrest hiding from flu season with a low ANC, and it sounded like B would not be needed at work until afternoon. We took advantage of the zoo pass my parents got for us to leisurely explore, letting Daniel take the lead. The pass removes the pressure to get our money's worth out of each visit. Mostly. Daniel's dad still didn't quite have the patience to spend the entire time in the "Tropical Discovery" building watching turtles swim while we tried to swim against the current of people (germy, germy people) just to stay in one spot until Daniel was ready to move on. Daniel saw one kid climb on a rock to get a better view into one of the aquariums, and immediately realized the possibilities. All he could see from then on were opportunities for climbing while observing. All his parents could see was goodness knows what plague smeared all over the rocks, shiny from the grease of many, many hands.
And then B's phone rang. It was work, and they needed him ASAP. We thought we had hours yet. We obviously thought wrong. So, each carrying a little boy, we raced to the car, then rode the bumpers of the cars in front of us all the way back to Loveland. But for awhile there, it was awesome. I mean, watching turtles swim in circles? Can't beat that. Not if you are two years old, anyway.
Daniel's appetite is back. If we weren't on a break, we would have started another methotrexate infusion yesterday, and would be feeling all itchy, exhausted and nauseated today. These breaks are amazing. We don't realize how much his treatments knock him back until he gets a chance to recover, and suddenly he turns into a happy, energetic little boy who actually likes his food.
Unless the financing falls through yet before we close on the house we are trying to buy, we only have five days left in this house. I'm reluctant to leave it. I think it's just that I have no tolerance for more change right now. It's been a heckuva year. Moving to a new town, job uncertainty, new baby, isolation, freaking pediatric cancer... And now, another house where our stuff is, where our life is supposed to happen, but isn't actually home. Just walls. More awkwardness, meeting new neighbors. Hoping they aren't horrible. Months of waking up somewhere strange, not remembering where I am those first few foggy moments.
The place that most feels like home to adult me is Summit County, and now Summit County feels weird, since we don't have a home there. When we drive through, I feel like I should be driving to the back of Summit Cove to that double-wide trailer house with it's pile of skis, snowboards, snowshoes and bikes in the living room, forest service trails out the front door, roaring woodstove and view of the snow-capped continental divide out the bedroom window. It's still my space. It's the flooring we laid down, the countertops we built, the walls I textured and painted, the light fixtures I hung myself because I was too excited to wait for help...the place we first tried to make a baby, the place we came home to when those hopefull cells didn't stay put, the place I curled up after crying and searching all night for Andy the Dog when he ran away (and finding him the next morning huddled under a staircase at the Keystone Inn). It's the place we finally lived alone and learned how to be married without the distractions of roomates. So many things about that place made it home, but strangers live there now.
Kansas feels familar, even more so than Summit County, but it also feels like someone I used to be. Even the three years we lived there before moving to Loveland, the ghost of my painfully awkward teenage self stalked me. I forgot I was strong and independant and badass. I lived in a bubble, a peaceful valley I rarely left, and my life revolved around garden, kitchen, my husband, my new baby. That was idyllic at times. But also weird. I missed the thin air and daily adrenaline of Summit County.
I want to feel about Loveland like I felt in Summit County. A strong sense of place, and my place in that place. It's been a year now. When will it become home? So far, in spite of all the things that have happened here, it still feels like just another place to be. I still feel a little ambivalent when I come home to it. It's not that feeling I used to get popping out of the Eisenhower Tunnel on westbound I-70, or rolling down the hill between Frisco and Silverthorne on eastbound I-70. There's no "ahhhh, home" sort of moment.
I dunno. Right now, I just feel...fearful. Uneasy. Unsettled. I don't really buy into unexplained precognitive, intuitive stuff. I think those "something's wrong" feelings we all get from time to time happen when our subconscious sees something in our surroundings that does not fit a pattern. I think the disruption to my pattern is the looming change of moving. I am now remembering the times (no doubt fueled by pregnancy hormones) after moving into this house, when I felt so isolated and unsettled. When I didn't even know who to call to make myself feel better, because it wasn't my old friends and my family I missed. They were still only a phone call away. It was everything that made my life my own. My husband was gone for days at a time, my house didn't feel like home, and I just needed my mommy. I do remember that. Needing my mom to tell me everything would be fine. Pacing this small, then-unfriendly house, not wanting to be here, not wanting to be anywhere else. Within six months, it passed. Now it's this house I am afraid to leave. I'm not sure I want time to just keep coming at us. The future scares the pants off of me sometimes. It frightens me that I suddenly find myself with so much to lose. And no promises that I won't.
That's the problem with being too happy, with being surrounded by exactly who you want to be surrounded by. With being in a golden time in your life. It can all end so quickly. I know this sounds morbid, but it wasn't like I wasn't thankful, every single day, that I had a healthy, happy kid before Daniel was diagnosed. That didn't get in the way of him being the 1 in 287. (That's kids who will be diagnosed with cancer before they turn 20, by the way.) And I can't help but think of all the things we aren't guaranteed- we aren't guaranteed that Daniel won't kick cancer's butt, only to do something stupid as a teenager and get himself killed. We aren't guaranteed that Alex will grow up. We aren't guaranteed we, their parents, will both be around to see them grow up. All we are guaranteed is this precise, perfect, glorious moment, right exactly now. So why do I still insist on spoiling it with the dreads?
So there's my honest and vulnerable moment. Maybe tomorrow the dreads will have turned into the happies. These delicate brain chemicals, keeping humans guessing since forever.
In the meantime, this: a moment I want to never end. Little brother, who thinks the sun rises and sets on big brother; big brother, who deigned to give little brother a hug for no apparent reason except he decided he liked him. Although in the next moment he planted his foot on little brother's chest and tipped him over backwards. All in the name of love, of course.
And also, this. They migrate toward each other in their sleep. Well, they migrate toward me. Or rather, where I usually sleep, between them. But when I'm not there, they end up cuddling each other instead.
And this. Because I have to share the angelic adorable before it damages my heart.
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