Changes ahead

Readers of my previous, now-defunct blog know that Rocket Boy has been unemployed for some time. A little over three years, in fact, and before that it was a little over two years (in between, he was employed for six months). Which means that during the last six years he has worked for six months. Pretty sad. And yes, he's been pretty sad about it.

Late last July he received a job offer. Hooray! Except for two things: the job was in Missouri, and it was dependent on him getting a clearance (it's a government job). Interestingly, this particular agency has tried to hire him twice before, and both times he turned them down, once to take the Ridgecrest job and once to stay in Boulder and try to find work here. It seemed like it was time to take them up on their (latest) offer. So he said yes, and the clearance process proceeded, and in December he heard that he had "passed." And then we waited. Finally, a few days ago, he got the email: please show up for duty on either April 1st, April 29th, or May 13th. Ack!!!

So here it is, what I've been anticipating and dreading for almost eight months. Rocket Boy is going to move to St. Louis and the twins and I are going to stay here. We might consider moving later on, but for now we won't. Rocket Boy hardly even knows what he's going to do in this job, it's so secret. He's met only one future co-worker. He has no idea whether he will like this job or hate it. Plus, moving a family of four and all their stuff is friggin' expensive. Until his situation there is a LOT more stable, I'm not even going to consider moving. I told him we'll revisit this NEXT summer, which means we'll be separated for a year, minimum. It could be much longer. It's a lot to take in.

My main reaction to this news is rapidly shifting extreme emotions. Sort of a quintipolar thing -- I've identified five emotions that I shift among.

• #1 is sadness: our family will be split apart, my marriage is over, we'll forget how to be together, RB will miss so much in the twins' lives, etc. 
• #2 is anger: all these years I've struggled to keep the family together, worked stupid jobs, and now he's just going to fly away and leave me with all the childcare and housework and responsibilities. 
• #3 is depression/fear: I can't do this, I can't cope, I'm going to fall apart, my body (especially my back) will fall apart, I'll screw everything up. 
• #4 is calm: I can handle this, I'm strong, I can make this work, I may even enjoy the independence. 
• #5 is happiness: RB has a job! and we'll get out of our financial hole! And life will be interesting again. And oh how I love everyone, including my husband. 

Several times a day I switch from one of these to another. It's very tiring. For instance, this morning I woke up with #3 (pretty standard for me first thing in the morning), which later became #2, then when RB and Kid B left to go to Denver for Kid B's belated "birthday party" I merged into #4, followed by #5 when Kid A and I were out doing errands, and then back to #4, which is my preferred feeling. By bedtime I'm highly likely to be back to #3 or #1. Perhaps medication could help control all these emotions, but in general I think I need to feel them, need to understand my reactions to what's happening.

While Rocket Boy and Kid B were gone, I mostly did housework. Laundry, cleaning the living room, sorting through mail, grocery shopping, dishes. Kid A had to stay home with me (because Kid B didn't go to his "birthday party" last week), and this made him extremely unhappy. But gradually he cheered up -- I let him watch some TV, and he helped me put away laundry, and later we had a treat at Starbucks and went to the grocery store where he pushed the cart. We also chatted a lot. Normally when I ask him questions about school, he says, "Not telling!" but today he told me about a bunch of things. I kept thinking about how hard it will be to have this sort of time with each boy after RB leaves -- who will take away one twin while I spend time with the other?

We've been letting the kitchen slide again, and that makes me unhappy. Above is what the kitchen looked like earlier today. And this is what it looked like after I worked on it. Not immaculate, but a lot better.

While I did housework today I kept thinking about how many times a day I do things that hurt my back. Cleaning the cat's litter box, putting the cats' food and water down, pulling clothes out of the dryer, loading/unloading the dishwasher, putting dishes away on low shelves, putting clothes away in lower drawers, carrying in sacks of groceries, carrying the laundry basket from bedroom to garage, picking things up off the floor... All of it is worse because I can't bend my right knee very far -- haven't been able to since 2005, when I had knee surgery. So I don't bend my knees to do these things, I bend my back. My poor, aching back.

I think the hardest thing -- well, one of the hardest things -- that I'll have to do when Rocket Boy moves to Missouri is take care of myself. Today I had a to-do list with 15 things on it. I did all or part of 10 of them. Among the things that didn't get done? Take a walk, and Do back exercises. The one thing I did for myself is write this blog post, and as I'm finishing it up, Rocket Boy is yelling at me to come read to the boys so we can put them to bed. How do single moms survive? I guess I'm going to find out.