Two Days to a Bittersweet New Phase in Our Lives

2 more nights here in NY....my mom keeps hinting at being very upset over the fact that we are leaving her home. We've been living in an apartment below her house for 4 years now. All our 100+ boxes are packed and we are ready to move from here Tuesday night and start a new life. I suspect the first few nights will be hardest for my mom and step-dad who have been very intimately part of Luke's for 4 years now...and Nora has never known any life different than having the love of so many adults in our immediate family.

My sister and I set up a SKYPE account so that my mom and the kids could talk through online video for free. I suspect Nora will have it the hardest for she asks for my mom the minute she wakes in the morning and goes to the door, knocks on her door to wake Lela (grandma) in the mornings. Again, my stomach is in knots over the change....and I can't seem to feel better about it.

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I know in my head that the change will do my family well. We need the space. Also, jobs are few and in between and I am lucky enough to get the job of my dreams (during such tough financial times )....I will be teaching art full time to kids AND to top that, get paid very well for doing it. The odds of that happening again are very few. In addition, my son (and later Nora) will go to a very good school with low teacher ratio and heavy parent involvement. But, the feeling that I am taking something wonderful and sacred away from both my mom and my kids that will not and cannot be replaced continues to haunt me?

I will have to live with this for a while and hope that it resolves itself in my heart in time. In Buddhism you are often asked to sit with the feelings and allow them to pass though you as if it were a ball of energy working itself through your body, like a sharp pain would. I am resolved not to fight this sadness, I will allow it to linger as long as it likes and and allow it to slowly pass through my body with the passage of time. I will trust what I have learned through these years, that it's often when we fight the uncomfortable feelings that we suffer even more. So I will continue to wake my husband nightly and share my worries, and my sadness.....

When Kyle, a dear dear friend took his life, it took me 2 years just to not cry over him every other day. Now I think of him and I can at least function. Knowing that even the worse of life's tragedies will be bearable with the passage of time helps me deal with my current tough issues and make me less fearful over change.