bellybutton update...That is, unless you've just left a few days ago and no one has taken your place.
Lucy and I spent a long weekend with all of her maternal cousins. Is this the right terminology? Anyway, I practiced my soccer-mom skillz with my sister's boys. I dig it. This is probably linked somehow to my being child number five.
Now that we're back home, I appreciate my husband and my own life more--just because they're mine.
So, what is the maximum amount of time that a person can stay away from home before it changes enough to really notice? We've been out of our old house since May of 2007. I think it changed almost right after we moved. Maybe intent has more to do with it than anything. If a person is gone for months and months with the intention to come back and continue things the way they were before, it can work, I think. But if you leave and mean to make a new home elsewhere -- well, then. Maybe it's true that you can never go home again even if chance turns things around.
When I was growing up (no smart remarks, please), my parents made it a priority to spend a few summer weeks in New Hampshire at a family cabin. I loved it--to this day, that cabin is on my short list for favorite places in the world. More often than not, I also got to spend more time with some of my favorite family members as sort-of a fourth child in their family. This time on the other side of the U.S. gave me a lot of opportunities to experience things that I wouldn't have otherwise.
There was a small price to be paid for those summers away: when I got home and my close group of girlfriends talked about playing softball or other summer activities, I was clueless; but this gap usually sealed up after a few weeks at home. I've never regretted spending summers away. If there's a similar opportunity for Lucy (and any of our other kid(s)?), I'll work to make it happen, I think. Of course, Lucy has two parents and this is not something I've discussed with Brian, so who knows?
I have some good friends in this neighborhood here who are trying to sell their homes/move. I feel for them. It's tough juggling current relationships with efforts and hopes to make a home someplace else. (Not to mention the stress or just the scheduling of getting all the moving stuff done--readying a house to put on the market, finding a new house, continuing a semblance of normality...)
From what I remember, it was nice when people were supportive of our move. Although the gesture that made me smile most (and still does) was when one of our old (previous-not aged) neighbors showed up at our door and asked if he could borrow a saw so he could "get rid of something in our yard for us."
Shameless flattery gets me every time.
Leaving our old neighborhood was hard. I knew that I would get to know people in our new neighborhood and that I would get just as attached to them as people I already knew and loved, still, it was hard.
