Clear your calendar

We've been unpacking in fits and spurts.  Initially, we went at it at full force, barreling through boxes at break-necking speeds*.  Lately, though, we'll empty a box here or we'll open two or three in an attempt to find something specific.

The other night, I was on a  quest for the husband's military medical records (which were in his black "Police" bag in the sitting room of the old house.  Why the movers didn't actually put all the things from the sitting room in boxes labeled, "Sitting Room," is beyond me.  Instead, they did that with a few boxes and then shoved things from other rooms in other boxes so that we have to play detective to find damn-near anything).  I never did find those records, but I did find an unopened roll of wall paper, swords (my husband collects them), a library book FROM OKLAHOMA (thanks, kids), tons and tons and tons of hangers, four phone books (For a state 2000 miles away.  Thanks, movers), and my calendar.

I always have a Jewish calendar (the Jewish calendar isn't anchored to the secular one, so I need it to know when holidays fall on the secular one).  This year, however, my mother bought went a wee bit crazy and bought us all (secular) calendars for Chanukah.  So now I have one of those fancy "Busy mom" type calendars.  What it lacks in Hebrew, it makes up for in a nifty pen attached to the top of the calendar (which the movers appear to have lost).

According to the calendar, our life ceased to exist after May 16th, moving day.  We've only been here a few weeks, but it's already a whole other world.  I stared at that calendar as though it was frozen in another time.  There are doctor appointments on there from doctors we will never see again.  The last Girl Scout meeting is there.  Oh how I miss those girls and their moms!  The very last birthday we ever celebrated in that house is there.  We moved into that house just 2 weeks before our girls were born.  So it was fitting that we left just after their birthday.  There was that last minute trip with friends to a local attraction that I always wanted to visit, but never did until that day (and had a blast).  I completely forgot that our family was reunited on Friday the 13th.  See the early family services labeled there that day?  Well, we came home from services and found my husband home after 8 months apart during this move.  After years of deployments and training and combat zones and civilian job training, it's over.  On that day, we celebrated shabbat with friends and we got our family back.

I looked at the calendar for a while.  It was late.  The kids were in bed.  The husband was at work.  The house was quiet.  I stared at May and remembered.  Then, with some reluctance, I flipped the page to June, completely blank and hung it up.   Moving right along.




*Either an exaggeration or wishful thinking.  Take your pick.

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