The Farewell Tour

I wrote the following post before we left California but didn’t get around to publishing until after we’d gotten to Texas, so please disregard present tense verbage! We have arrived safely in Houston with both the baby and the dog and successfully closed on our house yesterday morning. More details on those adventures coming soon-ish!

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I haven’t been blogging much lately. Aside from the fact that my free time has mostly been spent doing moving tasks, I also find it to be a hard time to write about, emotionally speaking. I really stink at this part. I either become an emotional weeping mess, or in order to prevent losing my composure I shut down and act somewhat indifferent. I can’t seem to find a balance and it makes saying goodbye tricky. 

I seem to strive on a solid dose of denial, thinking and saying ‘I’ll see you again soon’. But I’ve played this game before and I know that just isn’t true. All of our other assignments have been oil-centric so there actually has been an honest bit of ‘we’ll cross paths eventually’ sentiment when we say goodbye to our favorite friends. But the Bay Area is different. No one here will be visiting family in Houston and casually want to get together for lunch. Unless we make the trek back to California for business or vacation, I’m not sure when the next time is I will see some of my dearest friends. It really really stinks. 

And if I let that fact sink in as I’m spending my last precious moments with them, it ends up ruining my makeup pretty quickly. But if I instead talk robotically about packing and emotionally act like it’s any old get-together, steering clear of any sentimental conversation, then I can come off as cold and indifferent. And I certainly don’t want that either. So yea, it just is an icky, emotionally exhausting timeframe as we all do our farewell tour in San Ramon. 

Last weekend, my friend Natalie arranged a night away in nearby Walnut Creek. She used her Marriot points and found a deal for a massage and breakfast at the Renaissance Club Sport Hotel and we left the kiddos with their dads and took off for the day/night. It was absolutely what the doctor ordered. I think with a toddler running around, it can be so hard just to think things through and process everything that’s happening. I’m a textbook introvert and need time to let my mind wander uninterrupted to really feel sharp and present. Getting a massage followed by 2 hours lounging by the pool was exactly the recharging that I needed to get my mind ready and focused on the tasks ahead this week. 

We had a lovely dinner arranged by my friend Angela (who couldn’t make it….waaaaaahhhhhh) and a night of uninterrupted sleep and a slow morning (although we still both woke up around 7 AM. These kids have ruined us!). After coffee and breakfast we checked out and headed back to reality. 

That afternoon we were having our friends Dave, Pinthip and their little one over for food and goodbyes. Pinthip and I became instant friends when we met in a playgroup around the time our boys were 1. Compared to the other babies, our boys were super active so it was natural that we sort of gravitated to each other. Her hubby and my hubby hit it off as well so it was a great fit for the whole family. 

It’s so rare to find that! Pinthip went back to work full time when the boys were about to turn 2 which made our time together much more scarce. I was really glad that they were able to spend the afternoon with us and Forest had so much fun with his first ever best friend. 

Tuesday was Forest’s good-bye play date from our playgroup. I was really touched by how many people came to play and say goodbye. My friend Angela went all out and provided Starbucks for the mommas and juice boxes for the littles with plenty of fresh fruit and donuts for all. 

I joined this play group when Forest was 4 months old and it was my first group of friends in San Ramon. I honestly don’t know what I (or Forest) would have done without them. The mommas in the group not only provided awesome info for resources in the Bay Area but also were a source of comradery and encouragement as I was in the trenches of new motherhood. 

It’s been awesome to see these kids grow from newborns into preschoolers, and I really hope I can find a similar group of ladies and kiddos in The Woodlands. It’s the first thing on my to-do list. 

Thursday was my last real day with friends. Jon gave me permission to leave the premises while the movers were packing up the house so I decided to take Forest to San Jose to Happy Hollow Zoo. This is probably my favorite big outing to take him on but it’s a far drive so I tend to take him to Oakland Zoo much more frequently. Anyhoos, I mentioned my plans to a few friends and a couple decided to join us for one last play date. The boys had a blast riding all the rides (except for the cars which were closed for maintenance which was slightly dramatic amongst 2 year olds who wanted to drive the cars more than anything else in the world.) 

Though the park is technically a zoo, there are tons of rides and playgrounds for toddlers so we spent a big chunk of time doing that before Forest finally said, ‘Let’s go see the animals!’. 

After hitting up the petting zoo all the kiddos were pretty exhausted so we all went our separate ways for naptime. 

Saying goodbye here was when I really broke down emotionally. I feel like in motherhood, the bond you have with your mommy friends is super strong. I rely on their company for encouragement, normalization and comic relief. I am scared witless that I might have a gap of time where I don’t have a group of buddies (for me and Forest) to take a midweek trip to the zoo. 

Thank heavens my friend Jillian will live so close to me in The Woodlands. Her twins can’t quite keep up with Forest yet but it won’t be long and she is one of my favorite people on the planet. The thought of being close to her again is really helping me to hold it together. Not to mention tons of amazing friends I have scattered throughout the Houston area and yay for being within driving distance to my family in Louisiana!  I know their support will sustain me until I find my little tribe in The Woodlands. 

Anyhoos, after the zoo trip, I managed to find one more excuse to see my buddy Natalie and her sweet baby boy and my friend Angela invited Forest and I to play while the packers finished up on Friday. 

More tears were shed at these final goodbyes and even reliving them in my head is pretty tough. So I’ll just say that our California chapter was beautiful. I loved the people I met and the landscapes I got to see. I hope and dream that our lives lead us back there one day. 

But I’m also excited to be in Texas and have been amazed at how much it has felt like a homecoming. That’s the wonderfully strange thing about the lifestyle- 'home' is an ever shifting idea and we've learned to open ourselves fully to new places and people. That's really the only way this constant relocation stuff can work.