The Hard Stuff

Kitty fell fast asleep on the couch while pouring over her memory book from school. I think we will be laminating every single page of projects and photos of her and her little classmates and finding a place for it on the boat.

I am standing in a hallway, listening to little people's voices bubbling up with excitement. They are singing and their little voices ring with the crystalline purity of childhood. I glance at the wall to a smattering of crayon colored paper ephemera crafted by tiny hands. My eyes begin to become a bit misty.

I pop my head in the doorway and tell Kitty it is time to go. She grabs her back pack, waves to her friends and bounds out to give me a hug. She is shadowed by the most angelic little girl with long blonde hair and enormously big eyes who stops Kitty and gives her a tight , tight hug. "I will really miss you Kitty" Whitney says in a solemn tone. Kitty knew this day was coming and I think it hit her at this moment. Kitty usually is one to hug her best school friend with wild abandon, this time she was stiff and still. This is when I begin to actually cry.

Kitty has had an absolutely magical year at preschool. She has been fortunate to have good friends and a wonderful, loving teacher, Miss Suzanne that she adores. A teacher who gets who Kitty is as a person and embraces her and all her quirks unabashedly. Kitty has had the gift of friendship, laughter and lots of love. I knew it would be hard as everyone else was promising to see each other next year knowing that for Kitty, this would be a final good bye.

Kitty knows we are moving on the boat and going sailing but she has no reference point for what this means. She sees us packing up boxes, selling off the extras and she knows that things will change. While she is looking forward to having a bit of an adventure, I can tell she is having a tough time letting go. I can tell this by her insistence that our boat does in fact have room for Miss Suzanne to come too. And Whitney, Sydney, Emmalyn, Grayson,Sam, Cason and there just has to be room for Temisan as well. My heart hurts for her. Goodbyes are the worst.

It's a bit easier for Maura. To be sure, she is nervous about leaving but its much easier for a techno savvy teen to keep in contact with friends via texting, email, Instagram, etc. For a little person who only knows how to read and write her first name, its a bit tougher.

So as Kitty's school time comes to an end and we get ready for the REALLY difficult goodbye to her little tribe of friends on our street, I am full of resolve. I am resolved to get this boat done and get going because to have made her make this sacrifice without a payoff and a payoff SOON is just too tough to take. There will be other friendships made Kitty. And magical experiences and discovering new places and laughing and singing too. But there will be hard things as well and I think maybe, goodbye is the hardest.

I wonder if Miss Suzanne would like to crew...

Some Place In Between....

We did manage a little together time to go for a walk in the woods....

Let me tell you a little secret about life once the cruise count down move to under one year. It is HARD. Not hard in a "oh my there are so many things to do" kind of hard. That can be daunting, but every completed project ticked off the list comes with a satisfying sense of accomplishment. Its not hard in an "oh my we are going to be leaving bay and forth sailing and heading out into the ocean and it kinda freaks me out" way. Anytime I start to feel a little nervous about sailing far from land, I have the assurances of friends who have done it remind me that you are safer far from the coast than closer to it. Being a little nervous and therefore respectful of the power of the ocean is a good thing and that respect is what is going to keep Ceol Mor safely sailing. No, its hard existing in this bizarre half life of waiting.

Mark just finished is official last day of work. He might have a few days of consult work here and there, but the next 10 months or so are going to be dedicated to finishing up projects and getting the boat ready to go. Its more than a little scary to be looking at a year with no income but its part of the plan. I think perhaps it was not the brightest idea to end full time employment the month of Christmas. We do not go crazy at all, but any kind of Christmas is going to be an outlay of cash and now its time to remember fun today means less fun tomorrow. Because Murphy lives in our house, of course this was the month Kitty decided to clean my laptop thoroughly with Mrs Meyers. I will say that Mrs. Meyers makes the smoke pouring forth from a dying laptop smell all lemony fresh. Not exactly a great month for the budget, but we will be okay its just a little nerve racking.

Then there are the kids and this is one of the really tough things. I want them to really enjoy all that land life has to offer them for these last 10 months. With Mark pouring his heart and soul into Ceol Mor and me running kids to and fro, this means we have a lot of "divide and conquer" going on. I keep telling myself that we are counting down to possibly more togetherness than either of us want (ha!) but it can be a little lonely trying to play Mighty Mom Of Suburbia on your own.

Mark gets to feel chuffed when he redoes, say the plumbing on the boat. Anyone who has owned a boat applauds his Herculean efforts on the boat and every project he completes is met with a  "WOW! Awesome work!" from the folks who see his work. Any mom trying to be full on Super Mom knows that no matter how good a job you do, nobody gives you high fives. I know the girls are doing well so that is thanks enough but it does contribute to making this final countdown feel a bit tough at times.The kids are doing great and are engaged, busy and happy but I have this weird 'in flux ' feeling going on. I am not really connected with everything going on in suburbia because we are leaving. Its this really bizarre feeling of being here, but at the same time NOT being here. It is existing some place in between,

Its not a place of sadness. Nor is it a place of disappointment or anxiety. Its just this really strange place to be. In all of the writings I have read, I've never seen anyone discuss how weird it is to be neither here nor there in the last year. In one on one conversation, it seems that EVERYONE has this feeling. They just never talk about it. Not certain exactly why, but there it is.

So we are rolling into 2014. 2014, the year that we will no longer be living in the in between but will be actively cruising. I am looking forward to it more than I can say. Not just because we have been actively pursuing this for over 4 years now but because it will mean that I will be living a little more in the here and now. And that is the whole point of this adventure.