the house that jack built

Paticus is moving. She and her husband had been desultorily looking at houses for a couple of weeks. I picked up the phone last week to hear that they got the house! (Even more surprising since I wasn't in the know about the offer, etc.)

I spent most of my long weekend helping her pack. And pack we did - a 3 bedroom house in 2 days! I don't even think she needed the physical help as much as a little handhold in the outside world. Someone outside the immediate fray to say loudly and often that it will all be okay. When you're in the belly of the beast, consumed with the seeming realities of moving objects from here to there and the inevitable ceaseless number crunching, it is all so disorienting.

This was a bit of a flashback for me. Literally six months ago, I was the one wondering how to pull off all of the details and cursing the words "cash flow." (You'll have it...eventually, but not now when you need it most.) I remember wondering when I'd sell my house (and trying valiantly not to let thoughts of "if" enter my head.) Listening to her and her husband, I can hear the voices thinned by anxiety and fatigue, and I can feel my stomach pulling itself into a sympathetic knot under my sternum.

As always, I'm thinking about change and serendipity: how things long hoped for fall into our laps when we've turned our heads, how the road suddenly twists and we head off in directions we never expected, how even a change planned for at length can feel so unnatural. I think we all have "buyer's remorse" with most changes: even if it's what we wanted and hoped for, we always wonder if it's the right thing for us, if something else might be out there, and if we might not really just be happier just where we are right now, thank you.

There have been some lovely moments: finding the photos I took from the first time I met her (now) husband, mementos from college (we lived across the street from each other - she lived on Barrie, and I lived on Queen), and a long head-clearing walk. (Paticus claims that her life changed the very moment I taught her to wear her jeans on her hips and not her waist. I don't entirely disagree.) Throughout it all, I'm glad that I can be there for her and her husband, and that I am close enough to them to help them usher in their new era.