My last night's sleep in our Freeport home was really only a nap. Two hours after finishing all the packing details it was time to get up and go. The day before had been filled with visits from friends coming to say good-bye, and it was difficult to focus on packing when I really wanted to be spending the last few moments with one dear person or another. The packing probably saved me from being an emotional wreck because it gave me something I had to think about and do, rather than dwell continually on the imminent separation from home and friends.
Tuesday morning, departure day, began at 5:30 am. It did NOT begin any earlier, in spite of the fact that Chelsea's friends, Emily and Haley, thought it was going to. They showed up at our house at 5:00 am to say one last good-bye. Seeing the house still dark, they decided to wait, and curled up like puppies against each other on the front porch, trying to get a little more sleep. (I would like to have seen that!) They did wake up before we discovered them there.
Soon all was ready to go...that is, of course, a delightful oversimplification. It does not give light to more tearful farewells, with Haley and Emily-- and Chelsea's best friend from childhood, Brooke--and her mom, Cindy. It also overlooks the many dashes back into the house from the car by one person then another to grab or do something they had forgotten. It also spares you the final sobbing tour of the home so dearly loved and already painfully missed, as well as the stressful, “We’ve GOT TO GO or we will miss your flight!” interjected at various intervals and in various forms by Anthony, until we really were fearing that even his lead foot would not be able to get us to the airport in time.
The road from Freeport to Chicago passes through some of the prettiest, peaceful farm scenes in the Midwest, and I wistfully drank it in, trying to imprint it permanently on my memory. The two-hour ride was quiet, each of us withdrawing inside ourselves to deal with the range of emotions we were experiencing. The feelings of sadness and loss which claimed center stage at first gradually receded and became a pervasive background, while other feelings took precedence. As traffic thickened and slowed, anxiety for catching our flight was prevalent. As it cleared and we arrived in time, it turned to the excitement of the journey. Ben, Chelsea and Jacob had not flown for several years, and were excited to do so again. Jacob, especially, was looking forward to it. He had been quite little the last time we flew.
I felt excited, anxious and burdened. I was burdened by all the details I would have to take care of that day without Anthony’s help—retrieving the luggage (LOTS of it, and heavy, too) taking the shuttle to the rental car place, renting the car, driving in a busy city with which I was unfamiliar, finding the utilities office and getting them transferred to our name, checking into the apartment and moving all the heavy luggage in, buying basic supplies to make our apartment livable, and buying groceries so we would have something to eat the next morning. I was anxious about doing some of these things for the very first time by myself. But I was excited about the new life awaiting us. San Diego was our destination, and a beautiful place to be starting our new adventure.
Our flight was smooth and pleasant, but for one pocket of turbulence that simulated an amusement park ride, to Jacob’s delight, and we landed in San Diego by 11:30 am, Pacific Time. We bought lunch at one of the many airport restaurants, and ate it sitting on benches beneath palm trees and blue sky. Our luggage was piled onto two carts, which made moving it much easier, and we found our shuttle to the rental car place without trouble. We were given a Toyota RAV4, a peppy little SUV that was fun to drive. I navigated traffic without much trouble and made it to our new town without getting lost. (This was definitely a blessing! I have taken wrong turns and gotten lost a zillion times since then. But my first driving errand on our big first day went fine.)
The lady at the utilities office was very friendly and helpful. She even knew where we could find a Taco Bell, which Chelsea wanted desperately, having passed on the restaurants at the airport because she just REALLY ONLY WANTED Taco Bell. (I felt kind of funny asking for directions to Taco Bell. I wondered, with so many Hispanics in So Cal, do they really have Taco Bell, or do people all eat at authentic Mexican restaurants? Well, of course they have Taco Bell.)
The children were very helpful moving stuff into our second floor apartment. We were all beginning to get tired from the events of the past couple of days. But we headed off to Wal-Mart, the land of “every little thing you absolutely need at the price that you are willing to pay.” By the time we were done we had FOUR shopping carts of “essentials!” This included all the basic things we couldn’t very well pack on the plane. (And we did pack a lot. Did I mention? Chelsea’s suitcase alone weighed 59 lbs. To her sheepish embarrassment, we had to open it at the baggage check counter in Chicago and farm out nine pounds of her clothes to our other bags, or else pay a large fee. Ben and Jake were good sports stuffing her t-shirts, sweats and shoes in their carry-on bags. I took a few items as well.)
Anyway, we had four carts of pillows, lamps, air mattress, dishes, card table and chairs, dish cloths and other such items. We cut our shopping short because Chels decided that she had had enough and just really needed to get out of there. I couldn’t blame her. The overload of emotions, sights and sounds on very little sleep was catching up to all of us. We made a friend at the checkout counter, however--a friendly young man who had moved from Michigan a couple of years earlier so he could take up surfing. His dad had surfed professionally all over the world, and I guess they decided it was time for him to follow in his footsteps. He said he learned how to swim the first year and made it on the surf team the next year! “What kind of a surf team?” we asked. “The high school surf team,” was his answer. “High schools have surf teams?!” we exclaimed to each other on the way to the car. Why not? Welcome to Southern California.
After lugging all of our stuff up to our apartment, we set out on our last errand for the day. Groceries. It was dark by now, and we drove all over the place trying to find a certain economical grocery store that had been recommended to us. We finally stopped at a different one--I didn’t care how much it cost at this point—and got enough food to get us set for the next couple of days. A couple of days later I discovered that the store we had been looking for had been right around the block from our apartment, while the one I ended up at was all the way across town in the borders of the next city. Live and learn. (And laugh, after you get over being frustrated.) Once again, we hauled all our stuff up to the apartment. After heating some frozen food in our new toaster oven (the apartment didn’t come with a microwave) we pumped up our air mattresses, unpacked a few belongings, had a weary but grateful family prayer, and collapsed into bed.
The longest, hardest day was done. We would wake up the next morning in our new world.
No comments:
Post a Comment