Lost in the madness of starting a new life in another state and the chaos in between.
For the few who will read this someday and the few who read it now that may not know exactly what's going on, here's a rundown. Mr. Giovannoni was informed sometime last year that his entire finance department would be out of a job. Through careful thought and consideration and inspiration, we opted to pursue a different job, although still with the finance department, with the same company at it's corporate headquarters in Houston Texas. Mr. Giovannoni landed the job and we started making plans to move.
The last month and a half has been extremely chaotic for our family. While I spent a great deal of the past year just lamenting about being stuck and wishing for the opportunity to move on, now that we are moving on, we still find ourselves living in the unknown and I find myself as distraught as ever.
The nightmare of moving.
I never fully understood why people always talked about moving and packing with such disdain. I can now fully appreciate and agree with those people most wholeheartedly. It's AWFUL. Five people can collect a whole lot of junk over time. I had many many wonderful friends and family who helped with the packing and moving (most especially my neighbor Stacie, she was an answer to my prayers!) and I consider myself very blessed, but it was an awful process just the same. My kids ran wild, totally wild and unsupervised for the better portion of a week (I should probably note that Mr. Giovannoni was in Houston for most of the packing and cleaning process of moving out of our duplex, which left me to complete it all), our belongings got shoved where ever they would fit, things got beat up and broken, and we have had to divided up our stuff amongst three places. I have no idea where anything is anymore. Next time I'm heaping it all in a pile and just burning it down to the ground and starting over from scratch! The thought of having to gather our belongings once more and repack them into a moving truck so we can drive them down to Texas and then unloading them makes me want to cry!
Where I am now:
Sitting in Derik's apartment in Houston Texas.
After a day of scrubbing walls and carpets and floors and loosing the ability to move my wrists and most of my body for that matter (so I could finally wash my hands of our place in Midvale), I hopped on an airplane to Houston the next morning with the hopes of finding an area I liked so we could start looking for a home.
Going from the chaos of moving and cleaning and single motherhood, to being all alone in a quiet apartment without kids has been so very nice. And yet I find myself missing my kids fiercely! I wonder if they have drove my parents batty yet, I wonder if they feel as scared and uncertain about life as I do. I hope they are having a royal ball with their grandparents, because I don't know when they'll get to spend time together again.
Houston...
Maybe It's because I started to hear all sorts of horrible things about Houston, that I feared I was going to be miserable here. I had it in my head that when I got off the plane I was going to be assaulted with unbearable heat and humidity, and that giant cockroaches would be crawling everywhere. Not so.
It is as a matter of fact hot here, but not nearly as bad as it was hyped out to be. The time I've spent outside has always had a breeze and I am far from miserable in this weather. While I haven't spent a lot of time outside this trip and I'm sure living in this kind of warmth and humidity will get to me from time to time, I'm not that bothered by it. So I feel better about that aspect of it.
I have yet to see a bug, but I'm sure that's because I'm currently staying on the third floor of an executive apartment complex.
I'm not nearly as terrified of the traffic as I thought I was going to be, but without mountains I have no way to orient myself and that is as confusing as it gets. Sometimes I swear we are driving in circles. Driving with a GPS will be a must for me of that I am certain.
I think I'm also starting to realize that you can find a really beautiful and a "not so" beautiful neighborhood side by side, you just never know what you are going to get until you turn the corner!
There are some absolutely amazing planned communities out here, although most of them are out of our price range. We drove past a community yesterday called Sydney's Harbor, it is the coolest subdivision I think I've ever seen! Each homes backyard face a winding lake, it was beautiful to say the least!
One of the great benefits of working for a food distribution company is we have had a lot of highly recommended restaurants to go out to dinner to. So far I have not been disappointed, the food down here has been great! It's been fun to go on a date every night with my husband.
I even spent an entire day at the Houston Premium Outlet malls. I am not a shopper but it was the easiest solution to having me be in the same area Mr. Giovannoni was working in so we could explore that area, after he got off work. I will probably never ever find myself there again though, I nearly chocked when I saw that the kids Gap was asking 24.99 with 30% off, for their kids cotton t-shirts, no thank you! Cheap (me) and Premium (Outlet Mall) don't go well together.
Where I'm going:
Quiet frankly I have no idea, I came to Houston with the intention on finding a place to settle, but I'm no closer to that resolution than before I came. Each of the areas we've looked at had something I liked and didn't like about them. So far there has been no "ah-ha" moment, no inkling as to where we should start to search for our home. So I'm just going to keep on looking and searching and doing my part in hopes that we'll be blessed and guided as to where we need to go.
As of Sunday I return to Utah to be with my kids, I miss them, I really do. But that also means I say goodbye to the Mr. I walk back into the realm of being stuck somewhere between Utah and Texas and while I'm grateful for those who have and are going to let us stay in their home, I will not no longer have my own personal space, where I can laugh, cry, fart, and so forth without inconveniencing someone or embarrassing myself.
It's the deepest desire of my heart to find a nice place to live, so that we can be together again as a family. That is where I want to be.
I also hope in 6 months you'll find me laughing about all the stress I'm going through right now and saying to myself "look Michelle, you were worried for no reason it all worked out"!
1 comment:
Michelle,
Didn't I say something similar to your last line in High School? And look...it all worked out. :) I must be psychic. And I predict that you will find a fabulous neighborhood with the home of your dreams!
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