Things
Considering I moved here with only two suitcases in 2005, I have a hell of a lot of things now. I moved to America as a postgraduate student, to go to Columbia, to write a PhD. Which I didn't actually write. But being ABD ("All But Dissertation", "Almost Bloody Done", "Ah But Didn't") suits me fine and I don't regret it.
Actually, perhaps I should regret it. I wonder if I were Dr. Yaffle, rather than Ms. Yaffle, it would be easier to persuade the UK to hire me as a teacher. I don't have the Holy Grail and Must-Have teaching certification in the UK, the P.G.C.E. - but perhaps Dr. Yaffle would have more of a chance being hired by a British private school than Ms. Yaffle does. . . that kind of regret is entirely pointless, but it's an old 2-am friend, this week. But that's a post for another day, I can talk hiring woes and certification and experience and school systems later. This is a post about our stuff.
As I type this, in my little kitchen in my lovely little house in New Jersey, some pizza dough is rising. I just made it in my KitchenAid, which was a saved-for anniversary present a couple of years ago. We're still cooking in the wedding-gift pans (8 years and almost as good as new), and actually some carrots for the boys' supper are cooking in a pan I remember choosing in Bed, Bath & Beyond nearly 10 years ago. That's just stuff, I will miss it but it can be replaced.
There's other stuff, not purchased, that we're going to have to leave behind. Last summer my handy husband built the boys an indoor climbing frame, which sits where a dining room table would sit in a sane house. It's amazing. It has a rope ladder, a dangling chair swing and button swing, and a back climbing wall. They climb up on to the top of it, clutching legos, which they use to populate their space-worlds and drop down on things that go poooing and sometimes claannggg. Our oldest is highly, highly active and it's very much his happy place. When I think of dismantling it and leaving it behind I want to cry and cry, because I want the boys to have it. I don't know how to explain what has happened to them, and I picture their grief and it magnifies my own. But, that's a problem for another day.
Stuff. There's all my fabric. I like sewing clothes (semi-badly) and quilts (badly) and I have cotton lawn, linen, and bright, pretty quilting-cotton which I thought I had a lifetime to sew up. I'm going to sew as much of it as I can in the next year but I'm going to have to donate much of it in a year's time.
A year's time. That will be May 2018. We'll be on a plane (to where? to where?) by the end of June 2018, so I imagine we WILL be getting rid of a lot of stuff in May 2018, and the fabric is easy to get rid off because the boys won't miss it. And my sewing machine. And my serger. I don't know if I can transport them; besides they are heavy and expensive and actually, I should sell them, because now we need money and those things have resale value. But I love them, I saved for them, and I don't want not to have them any more.
Again, the child's wail, the stamp of the foot. It's not fair.
Deep breaths.
So the fabric and sewing gear - those are my 'toys' and I have a year left to enjoy them. I imagine we will sell or donate most of our books and old DVDs, our videogame consoles and games, much of our wardrobes (depending on where we go next), and many of the boys' toys. That part is going to be hard. We cycle through their toys relatively carefully, and do not give them toys in gluts at any point of the year except Christmas, but still, there seem to be a lot of toys here. I sometimes think that if I had to pick five things they played with the most, and get rid of the rest, I could do it. But just because I could, doesn't mean that they would feel they could.
Don't get me started on the books. Reading to them, all clean-pajama-ed and smelling divine, is one of the soft golden parts of my day. I can't imagine how I'm going to cull and donate children's books without dissolving like soap left in a bath.
The obvious things - the laptops, the wedding album, the tiny pieces of inherited glory like my father's silver christening cup - will travel with us. Many of our baby-albums are online, so those will be easy to transport. I already have a fairly small wardrobe and the boys have favourite tee-shirts but not must-keep-this-expensive-thing attitudes towards clothes. Several soft toys will get into the suitcase, more will be donated. Sheets, blankets, lamps - all can be donated or sold, and eventually replaced.
Once I have mentally emptied the house of small things; the big things sit and look at me. The kitchen table. The sofa. Beds. Two cars. Things we've moved from crummy rental to nicer rental to this lovely rented terrace house. Our china, which makes me happy every time I make a cup of tea or make someone a sandwich. Things that we can't take on a plane, no matter that I thought we'd have them till they ran out, broke, or our lives grew out of them.
Perhaps this is a kind of growing-out of them, too. It hurts to think about.
I've remade my life before - 2 suitcases in 2005, and I didn't know a soul in Manhattan- but I was flying solo then, 25, and excited for a new life.
Now... I just can't face how sad the boys are going to be. I can't really face how sad I am, how sad he is.
I thought we'd be here forever, I really did.
Actually, perhaps I should regret it. I wonder if I were Dr. Yaffle, rather than Ms. Yaffle, it would be easier to persuade the UK to hire me as a teacher. I don't have the Holy Grail and Must-Have teaching certification in the UK, the P.G.C.E. - but perhaps Dr. Yaffle would have more of a chance being hired by a British private school than Ms. Yaffle does. . . that kind of regret is entirely pointless, but it's an old 2-am friend, this week. But that's a post for another day, I can talk hiring woes and certification and experience and school systems later. This is a post about our stuff.
As I type this, in my little kitchen in my lovely little house in New Jersey, some pizza dough is rising. I just made it in my KitchenAid, which was a saved-for anniversary present a couple of years ago. We're still cooking in the wedding-gift pans (8 years and almost as good as new), and actually some carrots for the boys' supper are cooking in a pan I remember choosing in Bed, Bath & Beyond nearly 10 years ago. That's just stuff, I will miss it but it can be replaced.
There's other stuff, not purchased, that we're going to have to leave behind. Last summer my handy husband built the boys an indoor climbing frame, which sits where a dining room table would sit in a sane house. It's amazing. It has a rope ladder, a dangling chair swing and button swing, and a back climbing wall. They climb up on to the top of it, clutching legos, which they use to populate their space-worlds and drop down on things that go poooing and sometimes claannggg. Our oldest is highly, highly active and it's very much his happy place. When I think of dismantling it and leaving it behind I want to cry and cry, because I want the boys to have it. I don't know how to explain what has happened to them, and I picture their grief and it magnifies my own. But, that's a problem for another day.
Stuff. There's all my fabric. I like sewing clothes (semi-badly) and quilts (badly) and I have cotton lawn, linen, and bright, pretty quilting-cotton which I thought I had a lifetime to sew up. I'm going to sew as much of it as I can in the next year but I'm going to have to donate much of it in a year's time.
A year's time. That will be May 2018. We'll be on a plane (to where? to where?) by the end of June 2018, so I imagine we WILL be getting rid of a lot of stuff in May 2018, and the fabric is easy to get rid off because the boys won't miss it. And my sewing machine. And my serger. I don't know if I can transport them; besides they are heavy and expensive and actually, I should sell them, because now we need money and those things have resale value. But I love them, I saved for them, and I don't want not to have them any more.
Again, the child's wail, the stamp of the foot. It's not fair.
Deep breaths.
So the fabric and sewing gear - those are my 'toys' and I have a year left to enjoy them. I imagine we will sell or donate most of our books and old DVDs, our videogame consoles and games, much of our wardrobes (depending on where we go next), and many of the boys' toys. That part is going to be hard. We cycle through their toys relatively carefully, and do not give them toys in gluts at any point of the year except Christmas, but still, there seem to be a lot of toys here. I sometimes think that if I had to pick five things they played with the most, and get rid of the rest, I could do it. But just because I could, doesn't mean that they would feel they could.
Don't get me started on the books. Reading to them, all clean-pajama-ed and smelling divine, is one of the soft golden parts of my day. I can't imagine how I'm going to cull and donate children's books without dissolving like soap left in a bath.
The obvious things - the laptops, the wedding album, the tiny pieces of inherited glory like my father's silver christening cup - will travel with us. Many of our baby-albums are online, so those will be easy to transport. I already have a fairly small wardrobe and the boys have favourite tee-shirts but not must-keep-this-expensive-thing attitudes towards clothes. Several soft toys will get into the suitcase, more will be donated. Sheets, blankets, lamps - all can be donated or sold, and eventually replaced.
Once I have mentally emptied the house of small things; the big things sit and look at me. The kitchen table. The sofa. Beds. Two cars. Things we've moved from crummy rental to nicer rental to this lovely rented terrace house. Our china, which makes me happy every time I make a cup of tea or make someone a sandwich. Things that we can't take on a plane, no matter that I thought we'd have them till they ran out, broke, or our lives grew out of them.
Perhaps this is a kind of growing-out of them, too. It hurts to think about.
I've remade my life before - 2 suitcases in 2005, and I didn't know a soul in Manhattan- but I was flying solo then, 25, and excited for a new life.
Now... I just can't face how sad the boys are going to be. I can't really face how sad I am, how sad he is.
I thought we'd be here forever, I really did.
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