7 Quick Takes - Good-Bye To Misery Again

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We’re heading home from Missouri this weekend, which will bring to a close a very eventful past ten days that has been filled with the ups and downs, highs and lows that I've come to expect as we continue our ride on the emotional roller coaster for which I apparently have bought a lifetime ticket. As I write this Quick Takes, I’m not sure entirely sure that I will be able to publish it in a timely fashion but I am confident that sometime Friday or Saturday, we will stumble across an oasis in the Ozarks called McDonalds with Wi-Fi which will meet my husband's need for iced tea, my boys’ need for French fries and Mama’s need to blog.  Not to mention that ten minutes at Mickey Ds usually equals another 150 miles of traveling bliss;  something you learn quickly when making long hauls with small children.

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So here’s the low down.    As of this past Monday, we are no longer residents of the great state of Misery (that’s how Tom put it anyway).   We spent three final nights in our empty house (which the boys seemed to mistake as a gymnasium) and on Monday, the new owners took the keys (metaphorically speaking, we never actually got to meet the new owners).   I’m not sure anything really prepares you emotionally for saying goodbye to a home where you and your spouse started your lives out together.  Tom and I took a lot of pride in that place and we can only hope the new owners do the same.   On our last evening there, we sat on the back deck (which we built together) and admired the pin oaks we’d planted and how tall they’d grown over a period of ten years, the tall warm-season grass patch we’d established in hopes of attracting unusual birds to our backyard (it worked, we had sedge wrens and marsh wrens show up one year) and we watched as the tree swallows went back and forth to feed their young in the bluebird house that the boys and I had put up on Earth Day last year.     So many memories, but I didn’t cry.   There is too much life still ahead and I have learned from experience that it is best to not look back.  We made that little corner of our world better while we were there and that’s all we can do.  It is someone else’s corner of the world now.   So, we closed the door, piled into our car, and drove away from the little house on a hill.   

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Of course, Sunday also coincided with Father’s Day.   Joah decided to make the day memorable for Tom by having a temper tantrum and slamming a door against the wall, leaving a nice new hole in the drywall of the house that we were planning to leave forever in about two hours.   Happy Father’s Day! Tom had to make a trip to the hardware store and came back and did his best to repair the hole for the new owners.   After that little fiasco, I made the command decision that the boys go sit in their car seats and watch a movie on the  DVD player in our car until we were ready to leave.    Tom was happy to oblige and the boys were happy as larks watching Wall-E for the ten-thousandth time while we finished repairing Joah’s handiwork.   So much for sentimental good-byes.

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The boys connecting with nature at the KC aquarium.

After we pulled out of our driveway for the last time, we turned west.  Tom and the boys dropped me off to spend the week with a former co-worker who is also a good friend.   Together, she and I, along with another biologist,  spent the next three nights doing bat surveys while Tom and the boys spent the week with his folks in Kansas City.   It was a win-win.   The boys had a great time visiting Grandma and Pawpaw while I got some much needed time in the woods.  

Mama connecting with nature in the boonies.

I always loved being a wildlife biologist and so every once in a while, I volunteer my time just to get a taste of it again.  But after a week of being away from my boys, I am ready to get back to my new vocation.

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Now, we are headed back east, to our new home and whatever else awaits.   I am anxious to get back on the waiting list for adopting in Kentucky and am praying that doing so will not be a long process.    It is painful thinking that at this moment, we are not waiting for a baby anymore, after having waited for so long already.   Thank goodness I got to spend this past week in the woods, which served as a great distraction.  

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Another great distraction will be this Sunday, when Tom and the boys and I get to witness the baptism of this couple’s new baby girl.   I am still so overjoyed by their happy ending.    Every time I think about their journey, I am reminded again and again that we just never know how a story will end.   A week in the woods followed by celebrating with them is just the therapy I needed.

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So, life goes on and I am saying sayonara to the state of Misery once again, both literally and figuratively.   Until next time.

Thank you, Jen and Kathryn for hosting another Quick Takes!