The Rainbow at the End of the Light

Even though I skipped last week’s check-in, this week’s will have to be short, too. I’m barely recovered from the madness of … The Worst Move, EVER. We went for about a week averaging 4 hours of sleep per night. And not the kind of 4 hours that a good nap gives you, but the kind where you wake up worried about the things you’re forgetting, and weaving as you walk even though you know there won’t be rest any time soon. This is the third time we’ve pulled a cross-country move, and it seems each time is worse–probably because even though we make every effort to live lightly and purge before packing… we still have More Stuff.

I’m insanely grateful that I have The Best Brother EVER, who flew into town Thursday 10 days ago with his wife (who’s also an angel, BTW!). They made sure we left Milwaukee that evening… a mere 10 hours later than intended.

I only had enough time off from work to be completely away from that for 4 days, so after we collapsed into bed our first night in our new home, and made some half-hearted efforts at re-arranging boxes last Sunday, it was back to the office for me. I still need to catch up on two weeks of problem sets from the past two weeks of class, but I did manage to stay on top of all of this week’s deliverables and turn in my mid-term paper. I even managed to unpack half a dozen boxes each day this week. The house is starting to look… livable. We also started finding our way around our neighborhood, and managed four walks for a total of 5.4 miles.

Not having a deadline for putting things away is quite helpful for feeling like limitations are falling away. And gratitude for losing those difficulties makes the light at the end of the tunnel feel like a technicolor rainbow.

Having a husband who recognizes when he’s melting down or otherwise being irrational in the face of troubles (and turns to me for support) just reinforces why he’s My One. In fact, he shared a link with me today that made me all melty titled 10 Signs You’ve Found The One; we both hit all 10 for each other. And having just squeezed through what felt like literal Hell together reinforces how lucky we are with each other and how happy we are to be on the other side of this edition of the moving experience. So I’m taking a deep breath and looking ahead with hope again. In the meantime, check out how my ROW80 cohorts are doing with their goals; come back next week to see how we’re all doing.