The Move, day 1

Funnydad and I are sitting and reading on the floor of the bathroom of a Hampton Inn in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. It's not a big bathroom, and the floor is cold. But this room has the only light we can safely turn on while our kids fall asleep.

Today is the first day of our cross-country move. We're driving from Boulder, Colorado to our new home in Laguna Beach, California. The time between that last post about staging and this moment has been a roller coaster. Actually, lately it's felt more like being sucked into a downward spiral. Too much to recount in a single blog post, so if you haven't spent time with me in person or on the phone in the last few months, I'll just have to mete out the story to you in pieces as I post about our relocation experience. Again. That's "relo" (RE-low) to those of us who have done this so many times that we know the lingo.

Quick summary: We're going for Funnydad's new job, which he landed after being laid off last June. Which happened six months to the day after I was laid off in December. We sold our Boulder home, and we're both heartbroken to leave, but we both agree that it was the least bad of the bad options staring at us. We're wary of the expense and traffic waiting for us in Orange County. Southern California is going to have a few upsides, for sure. But, no matter how lovely the weather is, it's not going to be Boulder. It's not going to be that town where we fit in and thrived so completely. We're leaving good friends behind. It took years to build those relationships, and I'm not excited about the work and time it will take to recreate that in California — if it's even possible.

So. Holding back tears, we're headed west. We'll stop in a couple of National Parks and (I'm sure) several unplanned places. We just have to be at Funnydad's father's house in LA by Thanksgiving. Along the way, the four of us will spend the next ten days sleeping in the same room. Good thing I don't mind reading on a bathroom floor.

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