First of all, a rousing "Happy New Year" to anyone who's reading this blog.
At New Year's, people say, "out with the old and in with the new". Well, I got a whole lot of "new" to start off 2012! And before you say, "ugh", our story does look like it will have a happy ending.
My husband transferred with his company from Everett, Washington to Salt Lake City, Utah, this fall. He's always wanted to get back to the Rocky Mountain region after living there 15 years ago, and now he'd gotten his wish. I wasn't especially thrilled about packing up and moving cross-country. Although my teaching career had hit a temporary bump (I'd been laid off at the end of last school year) I felt comfortably established in the region and in my school district, where I was still able to be a substitute teacher. But since I love my husband, and I want to support him in his endeavors, I agreed to move. So I began the major purge/decluttering of our belongings in September to prepare for this move.
Over the next two months, I would take so many items to Goodwill that the employees would laugh and say, "You again??" To which I responded, "yep, it's me AGAIN!" Going through the house with a fine-toothed comb and taking box after box of stuff out actually felt good. I was rather amazed at how much we had accumulated over ten years in Washington. By my birthday in November, which coincidentally was the day the packers came to the house, I felt like I had really pared us down to a reasonable load of household goods. It made me feel even better when they said, "you've hardly got anything; we can pack this place up quick." Despite the fabulous going-away parties that had been held in our honor, it wasn't until I saw my belongings travel on their relentless journeys into wrapping paper and cardboard boxes that the reality of leaving the area that had been my home for the past decade hit me like a freight train on hyperdrive. In the two months since we had gotten notification we were moving, I was telling myself, "it'll be great fun...it's an adventure....you're closer to your brother and your parents.....there's a purpose for you to accomplish in Utah". Subconsciously, I couldn't get excited enough about the move to believe my hype and I broke down after the packers left. Yes, I now own stock in the Kleenex company, but I did NOT, repeat DID NOT, contribute to any flooding those who live along the Snohomish River might have experienced this fall!
The transfer yanked into sharp focus all of those things that I had taken for granted in Washington....friends, an incredible school of students/staff (a shout-out to Cascade High School) where I LOVED working, loads of fun things to do in Seattle, Starbucks cafes on every street corner, delicious/relatively inexpensive/plentiful sushi, lots of Asian markets and restaurants, the ability to order anything (wine, clothing, food) and have it shipped directly to my front porch, a beautiful home in a great neighborhood, mild weather year-round and 1001 other things that had become commonplace (and therefore, unacknowledged) in my life over the nearly eleven years that I had lived and worked in Washington.
Reflecting on the wonderful aspects of my life that I was going to miss helped me to also focus on things I wasn't crazy about while living in Puget Sound....days and days of rain, high cost of living, and more traffic jams than I can count. At certain times of the day, I-5 becomes one gigantic parking lot! I definitely was NOT going to miss that!!!
So very early on Thanksgiving Day 2011, 3:30 am to be precise, we left Everett and drove to Sea-Tac airport for our flight to Salt Lake City.
