Happy happy joy joy

It’s been twelve days since we left Vermont, and we’re almost home, less than an hour from our new apartment in Silver Lake.

The boys are texting with their friend Dalya. Can they walk to her house as soon as we get to our apartment? Yes, of course they can.

Charlie is clapping his hands.

“I can’t believe we’re almost there!”

He is giddy. So am I.

Jackson, more reserved, is nodding and smiling. They have Dalya on speaker phone and the boys are grinning and by her voice, I know that Dalya is grinning too and I wish we could capture this elation and savor it for days.

Two days earlier, as we were driving in New Mexico and a semi-truck had a blowout and I tried to dodge the debris but ended up with a chunk of metal dragging under my car, I worried this had been a terrible mistake.

Not just because of the car, but because the estate sale and auctions barely netted us anything after paying people to pack and move and clean out the stuff that wasn’t worth anything. And then it cost more to prep the house for sale: cleaning up the yard and flower garden and patching a few nail holes and steaming the carpets and hauling away even more junk in the yard and toolshed. And now I worry how long it will take the house to sell.

But now, we are entering the LA metro area. We are so close. Maybe this is the right thing after all, even if things keep going wrong.

This is home.

I realize that for the first time in my life, I am somewhere that feels more like home than Kansas does.

I am full of joy: pure sparkling joy, like a bubble of fairy dust...immediately followed by guilt.

I have been paralyzed with grief and anxiety and despair for over eight months now. Andy’s death has been an anchor.

I decide to embrace this joy, and to let myself feel it and to be grateful that in spite of all this loss, Jackson and Charlie feel it too.

I think we are going to be okay.

I hope we have more joy ahead.