Late Night Neurotic Behavior

I really hate moving.

In case anyone might be in doubt about that. I really hate it. It makes me feel fantastically insecure. In the past this has manifested itself in obsessive consumption of books and over-loving the cats. Now...

He's underfoot. Almost always. When I'm trying to clean out, trying to pack, trying to organize and prepare, he's right there...between my feet. Generally complaining--he's getting a new tooth and his favorite playmate is occupied with cleaning out, trying to pack, trying to organize and prepare. And yet. I have these moments during the day when I can't bear to look at the bare shelves, the stacked boxes, my email inbox, facebook, or blogs. And that's when I sink down and hold him. We rock and sing and I attempt to lay his hair flat and I apologize again and again and again that his house is a wreck and his life is upset and everything is messed up and in transition. I try to explain to him that this just happens sometimes, that someday he too will do things that he hates--that this is what it means to be part of a family, that life is change and that change is painful, that we don't always get the things we want. That's just life, but for what it's worth, Mama is sorry that it hurts.

In those moments, I'm not sure if I'm saying it to comfort him or me. I know. I know that he doesn't understand, and other than the loss of his playmate, he probably doesn't care. But I care. I care a lot. The one thing I wanted to give the Boy when I brought him here was stability. I feel like I've failed him.

The thing is...I'm completely crazy. My dad moved us a lot, and now that I think about it, I'm grateful that he taught us how to move. How to pack up our lives and go and settle somewhere else. It's not something that generally scares me...I hate it, but I'm not afraid of it. He taught me to do hard things by making me do them. And yet. These are the things that I don't want for the Boy. It's not that I want him to be soft, I don't, I want him to be strong and brave, but I also want him to know and value roots.


Every night I go in to his room and I sit and watch him and think. I wonder what he'll hate that I did. I wonder what he'll resent, what will scar him, I wonder what he'll one day be grateful for even though in the moment he hated it. I thank Heaven and Earth for him, for his healthy body, for his sparkling brown eyes that light up, for the ferocity of his crawling when he catches sight of me; I smooth down that hair and say a prayer of thanks that in spite of having to pack up the detritus of my life, I get to take my home with me--safely buckled into the driver's seat and a carseat.