Minda Goes West

Tonight was Youngest's graduation from elementary school, which is a thing here. It's held in the evening. The kids process in. There's a speech, and slide show. Each name is called, and the kid walks forward to shake hands, get a diploma, pose for a picture. Afterwards, there's cake. "Mom, do we have to move?" Youngest has a good group of friends--six boys who get along well, have fun, and challenge each other. A month ago, it looked like they were scattering to different middle schools, which was making the move a slightly easier sell. But now they will all--except for Youngest and one kid who is a grade behind--be at the same school. I know that middle school years are a time when many elementary school friend groups implode or explode or silently drift apart. Maybe it's better to leave before that happens, escaping the confusion and hurt feelings and the pain of watching it fall apart. But at 12, Youngest doesn't know that's probably

WriterMan pointed out to me that we are operating under a conservation of stress. We can apparently only stress effectively about one thing at a time, but there are many items on our Things to Stress about list, so as soon as we resolve one stressful situation, we get only a brief reprieve before we start stressing about the next thing. First, we were stressing about whether we were going to move. We found out the move is on. Yay! So then we stressed about finding a place to live. We signed a lease. Yay! Then we stressed about one of our twins, who had yet to find a job for after graduation and didn't seem to be looking. Then he found a job. Yay! We are currently stressing about choosing a moving method and date. Driving the moving van ourselves? Filling pods and having them moved? Or tossing frugality to the wind and hiring someone else to do the whole shebang? Stay tuned for the next episode of Stressing with Minda.

Moments before we left for the airport last Tuesday, we received a phone call from the landlords of our top apartment, telling us that we could have it. While WriterMan talked to them about the logistics of getting the lease signed (via email, once we were back in Vermont), I danced around the hotel room and Youngest looked glum. At twelve, it's hard to understand the value of sticking to a somewhat arbitrary budget, and he really liked the budget-busting option. I am relieved to have the question settled, in part because I was not looking forward to the pressure of picking out an apartment on my own, which was our backup plan. It also helps in the decluttering process to be able to picture the space where we will be living and the amount of storage available to us there. I'll share more about our new space once we are there. For now, I'll just say that it is one floor of a house in a quiet neighborhood.