Moving Saga: Part 4

The one where we finally make it.

We had about 5 days before LT would have to leave again.

He had to fly back to Washington to finish up some work anyway, so it just so happened to be “lucky” for us he’d be going in the first place—you know, being that there was a whole other cargo trailer and vehicle that needed to get across the U.S. to SC.

Those 5 days were spent doing as much unpacking and setting up house as we could, trying to find an optimistic reasoning for being stuck with a double cargo move. We settled on it giving us some kind of advantage to have the unusual opportunity to get things organized and cleared out before all the rest would come the following week. You’d think moving a billion times before over the last decade, we’d be experts at this. But the cocktail mix of baby, age, and overall exhaustion from all that’s involved in such a long-distance, big undertaking, didn’t exactly make for the efficiency we’d harbored in the past.  

We broke our backs trying to accomplish all we could, while still trying to give some semblance of a fun existence to our 5-month-old and 2 pups. They were all good sports, and we couldn’t have been luckier. But when LT packed up to fly away again at the end of those short days, the air felt egregiously heavy. Doing it all over again was the last thing LT or any of us wanted him to do, but there wasn’t a choice. In the past, I would’ve gone with him, driven the trek again and been a helpful co-pilot as much as I could. But again, with a baby, these sorts of life choices change. What’s best for Stella is front and center, and hauling her across the country twice by car was not something we thought was the best idea.

And so, our choice was for each of us to be alone, juggling what we would. I have to say, LT had it way tougher.

He made it back from Washington a week later after he’d wrapped up his work obligations and then headed out on the road trip of déjà vu. The drive was long, arduous, and while there was an original plan to take his time doing it, LT caught some kind of 15th wind and just wanted to be home already. He did it in 3 days, arrived scathed, but in one piece. The tired tears of joy flowed at the reality of being finally done, along with hoarse cheers of victory, all filling our new home with echoes that Sunday night.

The move was done. We were 600 feet under on everything from sleep deprivation to breaking bodies to financial burden beyond its peak.

But we were here. Our new life wrapped freshly around us as we breathed in the thick, hot air with relief, gratefulness, and for the first time ever, a true taste of what settling down might really feel like.

Home.

I think a move and life change like this is really hard to comprehend if you haven’t done it. You can feel sympathy and understand to a point if you haven’t made the trek, but to feel and process the full breadth of it, I think that’s just one of those things you have to experience for yourself. Condensing this whole journey down into a “moving road trip” is what we do, but it’s so much more than that. I couldn’t end this saga without the biggest, most emotional thank you to LT. What he did and endured in order to successfully transport us into this new, gorgeous life—a life I’d been dreaming about for over a decade—is huge. Beyond all words in any language. He is my—and Stella’s—superhero for all of time. We love you to the moon, Papa Bear.