So (and don’t I start a lot of sentences with “so”), here’s the tentative do-able plan. We will ship the Jeep to Maine, and I will fly to Portland somewhere in the vicinity of July 10th or 11th to give myself a few days to settle in before my start date on the 15th. When Bill is ready to move we’ll rent from one of those places that provides shipping for self-packed storage containers, pack it up, and ship it to Maine. We’ll either store it, shift the contents to a storage unit, or perhaps by then we’ll actually have a place to move into. I’ll fly back to Arizona and Bill and I will drive the Ram together, with the dogs, towing the motorcycle, back across the country.

I’m actually toying with the idea of flying first class from Phoenix to Portland, arriving for my new job in style. Because, hey, why the hell not, right? It’s not that bad, cost-wise, when purchasing a one-way ticket. A frivolous and foolish extra $200 which I’ll probably think better of before making the actual reservation (and I can hear Bill’s opinion echoing in my ears even now), but it amuses me to toy with the possibility.

Now if we can just solidify his job!

Time to go wear out the shredder. It’s ASTONISHING how much crap in the way of paperwork I’ve just KEPT for the past 18 years. It’s astonishing how much of that crap can be contained in one four-drawer file cabinet, one two-drawer file cabinet, and two file boxes.

So, we sorted, we bagged, we hauled, we donated, we dumped. We spent all day on that room and there is more to go. Not a LOT more, I just have to sort through some papers and spend some time with the shredder, and there’s a whole pile of books that need to be lugged down the stairs and donated. But DAMN. We put in some SOLID work yesterday. Our initial run to the donation center resulted in twelve bags. When we came back I started in on the closet, and hauled out NINE MORE BAGS of stuff to donate. Not small shopping bags, either. Those big black stretchy heavy duty trash bags. Full of really cute clothes that I don’t fit in anymore.

But that wasn’t the part I was sighing over, and exclaiming over, and feeling embarrassed over, and hating myself for.

You guys, you should have seen the LISTS. And the BINDERS. And the sheer accumulation of things directly related to my anal-retentive tendency to organize the CRAP out of EVERYTHING. For the love of God. I came across a typed and printed grocery list in an old purse that was for two weeks’ worth of meals, separated out by commodity. “Personal” and “Dairy” and “Meat” and “Pets” and whatnot. It must have been for Christmas because “lobster” was being served on the 24th. AND it must have been for when the grandbabies were still here because formula was on the list (I just looked, I’m pretty sure that this is the related entry). I also found the informational packet that I made for our first trip to Wyoming back in ’09, complete with printed out maps and itineraries. In a REPORT PORTFOLIO. You know, the kind with the blue back and the clear cover? Who the hell DOES that? I dug up all of the brochures I collected for our trip to Maui in 2003, in a bright green folder. There were hoarded reports and papers from my days at Western International University. I unearthed the “copious notes” that I took in preparation for the interview I had back in 2007, coincidentally with the company that just hired me (last time they flew me to Maine, this time we had a video conference. Ah, technology.)

I sat at the top of the steps and sorted through old purses and an army of paper bags, each of which had a STACK of papers and slips and receipts shoved inside. I kept saying to Bill, “I’m SUCH an asshole.” “Why do you love me?” “GOD I’m pathetic.” “Jesus, what is WRONG WITH ME??” “Will you LOOK AT THIS?” He kept laughing at me and told me it’s all part of why he loves me. Never before has it been so clear to me just how much he has to put up with.

We’re more even on that score than I ever dreamed. Heh.

Right now it’s 7:30 on Monday morning. This is the third post that I have written that will have to wait to be published. “Well, I asked for it” and “Disambiguation” are posting on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, so this one will go out on Thursday. Out of respect for my current manager and the company for whom I’ve worked for the past 18 years, no posts about my move to Maine are going out until I’ve spoken with my manager face-to-face. And since I work from home on Mondays, that conversation is going to have to wait until tomorrow (the day before yesterday, by the time this posts).

My need to WRITE about all of this, though, will NOT wait. So perhaps I will just keep adding to THIS post so that eventually real time will catch up with my blog.

Soon I will have the ocean. In moments of panic – the ones that usually occur in the middle of the night while I lay sleepless – I think about having proximity to the ocean once again. And all of the breathing that will ensue once I plunk my butt and my toes in the sand.

11:45: Just got off the phone with my new boss and officially accepted the position. Then I scheduled a meeting with my current boss for 9:30 tomorrow morning to break the news. I also spent some time this morning drafting what will be my “So Long and Thanks For All the Fish” e-mail to my various friends and colleagues. You don’t realize how many people have influenced your life until you try to put together a distribution list for something like this.

Tuesday 5/14:

It’s 8:00 a.m. I meet with my manager in an hour and a half to break the news to him that I’m leaving. I’ve started recognizing the finite nature of a lot of things about my life here in AZ. “The number of times I’m going to walk through these doors is limited to what I can count on my fingers and toes.” “How many more evenings will we lay in this bed, watching this TV, in this room? I wonder what our next bedroom is going to look like?” “I can totally decline that meeting because it’s happening in July and I won’t be here!” “How many more times can I fit in dinner at Espo’s before I leave?”

I read Britt’s post today about how happiness takes guts. It was timely for my day, for our point in life. To quote her:

You are looking, reading, thinking about how to be happier tomorrow than you are today, or happier tonight than you were this morning. Not everyone does that. Not everyone has the courage to go looking. But you do. So I mean it when I say this to you:

I know that you have the courage to be happier.

And it’s a good thing, because you’re going to need it.

Yep.

I’m having a lot of fun mapping out how long it takes to get to certain places from the vicinity of Portland, Maine, and finding all kinds of places I want to explore. Quebec, Montreal, Nova Scotia, Cape Cod, Rockland, Portsmouth, Boston, Montpelier, Isle Au Haut, Martha’s Vineyard… if we wanted to, we could drive to New York City in 5 hours, or Washington DC in 8 hours. Oh, the pictures I will take.

12:20: Well, my meeting with my manager went well. He congratulated me and thanked me for all of my hard work. I’m not sure when he’s going to tell the rest of the group, but the word is trickling out since I posted Well, I asked for it. A few of my fellow AcronymCo employees follow me on Facebook. So the cat is out of the bag.

I had one more meeting after the one I had with my manager, then I met Bill for lunch at Red Robin. I was starving beforehand, and now the food sits like a lump of concrete in my abdomen.

Anxiety wreaks havoc on my digestive system. I’m considering asking for a refill on my Xanax.

I’m going to need to write down a lot of these details as they happen, since I have a feeling that once all of this stuff is behind us and we’ve settled into our “new normal” the details will be extremely blurry. Hell, they seem blurry in the very moment in which I am living them.

Hoo boy.

Wednesday 5/15:

8:30: Just sent my official resignation letter to my manager, and faxed my official acceptance letter to my new company. No turning back now! Not that I wanted to. I have a laundry list of things to get done before my last work day. I want to leave things in good shape for whomever is going to be assigned as my coverage. And yet… ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL I want to is sit and read Explorer’s Guide Maine, which I bought for my Kindle a few days ago. Maine has a LOT of nooks and crannies. It’s going to be awesome to explore. I wonder if I can get a local newspaper to sponsor a weekly “Tourism in your home state” kind of thing? Because it’s weird, but a lot of the native Mainers I know never bother to actually, you know, explore. I certainly didn’t until I moved away and then started coming back every year or two for vacation. And now I want to see All! The! Things!

3:15: Whittled my inbox down from 236 to a respectable 81. I actually managed to be productive, thanks in part to just plugging my earbuds into my head and letting Google Play Music All Access zone me out. I signed up for their free trial. I judge it to be decent thus far. I can actually look up and listen to whole albums without having to buy them.

I just realized I only have two more “work from home” days before I’m done at AcronymCo (Monday the 27th is a holiday). This is a luxury that I think I won’t have at the new company. I’m also losing a week of vacation a year until I’ve been there for seven (or is it five?) years, when I’ll get back to four. And they don’t have sabbaticals every seven years. So, I’m giving up quite a bit of free time by moving to this new job. But it’s WHERE I want to be, so I think that makes up for it. Like I said in this entry,

I will be losing a lot, by leaving this life that I live right now. But I consider it worth it for the things I will gain.

You know what’s weird? I wrote that entry on July 12, 2012. A year and three days later, I’m starting my new job in Maine. My prediction of that entry:

And it’s happening, just about a year from now. The clock is ticking. As soon as I’m finished with my degree, and I only have four classes left. Then I will be eligible for all of those jobs who wouldn’t consider sixteen years of experience equal to a degree. I could apply to those jobs reserved for new and recent college graduates.

Once the job is secured, everything else follows at a rapid pace.

Once the job is secured, I take that gulp and I take that leap.

Hello, gulp. Hello, leap. Right on time.

It turns out that Amanda wants to rent the house from us, which removes a LOT of the work we were going to have to get done prior to my departure. She’s more than happy to take the house “as is” without the cosmetic improvements we’d need to perform in order to put it on the market. I think it also helps Bill’s anxiety (and mine, too) to know that we still have property in Arizona if everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Which it surely WON’T.

This October would mark the 20th anniversary of my move from Maine to Arizona. I’m excited, and petrified, in equal measures, to be moving back. Anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time knows how much I have wanted to move back to Maine, and for how long I’ve held that dream in my heart. Now it’s here. It’s surreal. It’s wonderful. It’s scary.

I’m leaving AcronymCo after nearly eighteen years of employment (nearly twenty if you count the time spent as a contractor). That’s going to be weird, in and of itself. I KNOW that place. I know everyone there (well, not EVERYONE, but hundreds of people with whom I’ve worked side by side for all of my career). I know all of the in’s and out’s of the company, how it works, what its problems are. I have a rhythm, and a reputation, and tenure. My time at AcronymCo has made the rest of my life possible – gaining the confidence to leave my ex, pursuing my education, meeting and marrying Bill, gaining a wonderful family and two fabulous kids, gifting me with a circle of excellent friends, establishing my home, giving me stability, and providing for all of the wonderful experiences I’ve had over the past two decades. I have nothing but good things to say about my time there, and I will miss many things about it. Not the least of which are all of the friends that I have made along the way.

I’m excited about this new opportunity, though. The discipline – Supply Chain Management – is the same. But the commodities are about as opposite as you can get, and it’s a step upward in my career. I’m going from the semiconductor industry to global food retailing. I’m going from being an individual contributor to a manager. There’s so much ahead of me to learn, and I’m raring to go. I’ve felt for a while now that my career was rather stagnant and I wanted to go in a new direction. That I’m being given this opportunity – no, that I’ve EARNED this opportunity – is a huge boost to my confidence. Back in 2011 I posted about how I wanted to go about achieving my dream. And damn if it didn’t work out almost according to that very plan, with a bit of the aforementioned cart before the horse thing.

We’ve still got a lot of unknowns – Bill’s job and long-term living arrangements being the primary issues. But we ARE smart and we ARE hard working. I’m beginning to believe that we can handle this.

So.  A few weeks back, I got online.  With a “why the hell not” attitude, I looked on the job boards for a few of the bigger companies in Maine. I found several job postings that were perfect for my experience, my expertise, and my newly-minted degree. I applied to them.  Then I kind of put it out of my mind – as if, in a fit of pique (I’d had a bad week at work), I had to enact some form of rebellion to make myself feel better, but without much expectation of success. Except… I heard back from two of the three companies I’d applied to. I had one interview with one company on Monday April 22nd.  It went well, but they haven’t contacted me since that initial conversation.  I had another interview with the other company on Monday the 29th. It went really well, and I had a second interview with them on Wednesday May 1st.  I was the 12th of twelve candidates that they interviewed.  I told them they did well to save the best for last.

That interview went really well, too.  So, I had ANOTHER interview scheduled for Monday the 6th.  THAT interview went exceptionally well.  I was told that, even over the phone, after just a few minutes everyone felt like they’ve known me for years.

If (BIG IF) I am chosen and they make an acceptable offer, I’ll be moving to Maine in the very near future.

Holy shitballs.

I’m not going in the order we planned to go in. I should have waited to apply, waited until after we’d sold the house, made some other preparations, were ready to leave at the same time, etc. etc. ad nausium.  I just… couldn’t. I felt that if I didn’t apply for those “perfect” jobs, another opportunity wouldn’t come along for a long time.  Like it was meant to be, that my boss would piss me off at that exact moment, so that I would log onto those job boards at that exact time, and put myself in the running for those exact opportunities.

So, in a “we’ll make it work, somehow” frame of mind, my thoughts are scrambling to figure out how to pull this off. Bill feels like I’ve put the cart before the horse, and he’s right. He thinks I should have approached this differently, and he’s right. He’s said the timing is off by about six months, and he’s right. He’s also said that we’ll make it work, and sometimes you just have to make the leap. He’s right on that one, too.

IF I’m hired, I’ll have at MOST a couple of months to get things organized and prepare to move myself across the country.  We need to make arrangements for the house, and all of our CRAP needs to be gone through, consolidated, organized, donated or otherwise disposed of.  We have to get as much done while I’m still here as we can, so I don’t leave Bill alone to deal with all of the details.

Then I’ll drive, by myself (although I’m betting I could get Amanda to go with me, then fly back), with our pickup loaded with the possessions I will need, across the whole entire country.  Did I mention by myself?  It’s not how I pictured it.  In my mind’s eye I saw Bill and I in the cab of a big moving van, pulling out of our driveway and hitting the freeway, dogs panting in the back seat and Zoe yowling her fool head off in her carrier, fraught with the anticipation and excitement of embarking upon this new phase of our life.  TOGETHER.  But, I’m a cart-putter-in-fronter, so I get to drive my own sweet ass three thousand miles to my Uncle’s doorstep, who has always told me the apartment is open for me to come any time.

Once my own employment is confirmed, Bill will start applying for jobs in Maine – we’re hoping he can just transfer with his company, but the branch in Maine is small so we’re not positive.  I pray with all my might that things just magically fall into place, that we’re not apart for more than the bare minimum amount of time it takes to make all of these arrangements.  If it’s more than a couple of months I’ll be devastated.  Then once he gets a job in Maine, we will finally FINALLY FINALLY be where we want to be, together.

I’m excited.  I’m hopeful.  I’m scared.  I waffle between optimism and pessimism so hard it gives me whiplash.

Gulp.

Well, I did ask for it.

I’m just going to play pretend here, for a minute.  I want to write it down and look at it.

Say I get hired this week.  We’re heading to Maine on vacation on June 11th and we’re NOT cancelling that, and it’s not possible to move to Maine before vacation.  So, my last day at AcronymCo would be June 7th (I’d get paid for vacation and then have my “official” release date on the 28th or so, but the last day I would actually work would be the 7th).  We’d vacation from June 11th through the 22nd, then I’d use the week after we get back home to finalize stuff.  I’d leave for the drive across the country on Monday July 1st, and it will take five days of 8-10 hours of driving each day to get there, which puts me in Maine on Friday July 5th.  Which means my start date at the new company could be as soon as July 8th.

O.o

It would be so WEIRD and so AWESOME to know that at the end of vacation, in just a couple of short weeks I’ll be turning right back around again and heading back.  This time for GOOD.  I’m going to float above my seat when I cross the bridge over the Piscataqua River, crossing the New Hampshire border and seeing the “Welcome to Maine” sign that greets me with every trip home.

Oh my God, you guys, could this really be happening???

———-

I wrote the above at the beginning of last week.  Before I learned that I got the job.  I found that out on Friday, then spent the weekend mulling over the details before officially accepting the job yesterday. I told my manager at AcronymCo today.

It’s happening.

Here we go.

Oh my God, you guys, here we go.

There are a ton of things – TWO tons of things – that I should be doing right now. Instead we’re hanging out, waiting for Amanda to come over and visit with us, watching a show we’ve seen a dozen times before, and ignoring Real Life.

Tonight Bill and I are going with Aaron and Michelle to the Tempe Improv to see Maz Jobrani. The Improv shut down for a while, and it looked like it was going to be closed for good until another company took it over and make it “Better Than Ever!” I’m glad. It’s the site of one of the first official dates that Bill and I ever had. Give me a little buzz and some good comedy and that’s my idea of a fun night out.

There are other things, big important things, that I want to write about right now but, out of necessity, it has to wait until next week. Consider this a teaser.

So much writing to come.

Piper is running around the house right now wearing a diaper decorated with pink polka-dots.  The shelter thought she was spayed when, in fact, she is not.  We’re calling her “Piper Diaper” and “Diaper Genie” and cackling in a mean way.  Ah, the things that entertain us on a quiet Thursday night.

Speaking of entertainment, I have latched (later than the rest of the world, it seems) onto the phenomena that is The Piano Guys. Watch their videos. They’re entertaining. They’re funny, and talented, and approach their music in a very unique way. I’d love to see them in concert, but we’ll be on vacation in Maine when they’re in Arizona. To make up for that I bought their CD/DVD combo.

This video made me particularly happy. Old people are awesome.

We had leftover Chinese food for dinner, and were happy to eat it. We’re not big fans of leftovers, but this new place that we found delivered EXQUISITE Sesame Chicken and House Special Beef, not to mention their epic egg rolls and crab puffs. So, we ate the same stuff two nights in a row with enthusiasm. I do believe I have discovered the reason that I’m not a size two. I have a feeling, though, that if I were skinny I’d just be miserable. I’d rather drink beer and eat egg rolls and sigh at the condition of my non-flat belly, than self-righteously sip water and eat lettuce while resenting the seductive smells that are coming from everyone else’s meals.

It’s barely into May and we’ve been running the A/C, at least some of the time each day, for a couple of weeks now. The nights are beautiful, though, and we sleep with the windows open despite the fact that the obscenely cheerful birds wake us up at the ungodly hour of 4:00 a.m. It’s hard to get grumpy at them without feeling a bit like David Tomlinson’s “Mr. Banks”.

Speaking of grumping at a cheerful creature, Zoe’s perpetual and insistent joy of mornings is really nerve-wracking. She mews, and meows, and chitters, and churrups constantly as I get ready for work. Bill typically hollers from downstairs (where he’s enjoying his morning paper and his cup of coffee and his routine and his QUIET DAMMIT), “Will you SHUT THAT CAT UP?” So, I figure, I should give her something else to do with her mouth other than make sounds with it. So I cup a handful of water in my hand, and dump it on her head. The theory is that she’ll spend the time cleaning herself, and will therefore cease and desist with her chatter. The method kind of works, but not in the manner I figured. She meows, I dump water on her, she shakes herself off and stalks to her food dish and crunches on dry food. Every single time. I have no idea why this triggers her to eat, rather than sit and indignantly clean herself. Eh, whatever works.

Two in particular have been resonating with me on a near-constant basis as of late. The first, of course, being my relationship with Bill. Now, I am a great lover of romance, and the number of romance novels in my collection rivals the number of science fiction and fantasy. There isn’t a whole heck of a lot of romance between Bill and myself – for all that I love the idea of romance, my pragmatic side is in the forefront most of the time. Romance and pragmatism are diametrically opposed. And Bill is… well, Bill. A great husband, sometime deliverer of warm-fuzzy bombs, but not so much a hearts and flowers kind of guy. Which isn’t to say there hasn’t been any romance at all in our relationship, it just happened early on, during the time when Bill was “still required to impress me” (his words, not mine).

What we have is constancy. The dictionary definition is so much the desired culmination of romance, as to be romantic in and of itself:

The quality of being unchanging or unwavering, as in purpose, love, or loyalty; firmness of mind; faithfulness.

THAT, my friends, is what Bill and I have. And I am blessed beyond measure because of it.

The second blessing I’m counting today is friendship. I don’t have a vast army of friends. I have a finely distilled selection of quality friends who are ALSO constant. I don’t see them all the time, I don’t communicate with them all the time, and occasionally we fall off of one another’s radar for a not-short period. But when we do reconnect there is no judgement – on either side – about lack of communication. I know I’m in their hearts, they know they’re in mine. That’s how friendship works.

I’m feeling grateful for two friends in particular today, for no specific reason other than I love them. One is my good friend Aaron (formerly known on this site as “Archibael”), with whom I have been friends since we both started working at AcronymCo back in 1995. You may recall such epic entries as this one, or this one. If you’ve REALLY been paying attention you may recall that Aaron helped name this website. Anyway. Our friendship suffered some distance, due entirely to the fact that Aaron’s ex-wife is an unpleasant, judgey individual. She did NOT approve of my relationship with Bill, therefore cut HER friendship off with me and pretty much expected Aaron to do the same. So, though we communicated at work, had some fun e-mail exchanges and occasionally dropped by one another’s desks for a chat, we didn’t hang out. I knew things weren’t great, life-wise, for Aaron. He’s not one to burden his friends, though, so I offered him a shoulder if he needed it but that was all I could do.

Then, about a year ago, he contacted me to let me know that he was getting a divorce. Much celebration ensued. And THEN he got a new girlfriend, Michelle. More celebration ensued. Then we MET Michelle. And I met the twin sister of my heart. She has become one of my closest friends. On top of the fact that she’s awesome in her own right, she makes Aaron very happy. AND we get to all hang out together and do really fun stuff. It’s like I got a long-lost friend back, with an added bonus bestie to boot.

Last Friday we all got together to have a special dinner in celebration of my graduation. We went to a restaurant so fancy that they actually put my NAME on the menu. They’d asked when I made the reservation if we were celebrating anything, and I told them about getting my degree.

(Click to enlarge, and let’s hear it for crappy cell phone pictures!)

The food was truly exquisite, but it was the company that made it a celebration. We all got all dressed up, had a fancy dinner, went to Tonic (our neighborhood bar) and listened to a good band… it was all terribly grown-up of us. And so much fun!

So yes, I am grateful. For Bill, for Aaron and Michelle, for all of my other friends both near and distant, for my family members both near and distant, and for the online community of friends with whom I have shared so much over the past going-on-thirteen years.

Warm fuzzies for everyone!

Go and read this when you have chance. He describes a moment at the end of a concert that made it all fall away for me. And then I clicked on the video he had posted at the end, a song by Listener called “Wooden Heart.” More spoken word and poetry than melody, but heartbreaking in its passion and its poignancy. The performance is delivered with such… I don’t know, need.

We’re all born to broken people on their most honest day of living
and since that first breath… We’ll need grace that we’ve never given
I’ve been haunted by standard red devils and white ghosts
and it’s not only when these eyes are closed
these lies are ropes that I tie down in my stomach,
but they hold this ship together tossed like leaves in this weather
and my dreams are sails that I point towards my true north,
stretched thin over my rib bones, and pray that it gets better
but it won’t won’t, at least I don’t believe it will…
so I’ve built a wooden heart inside this iron ship,
to sail these blood red seas and find your coasts.
don’t let these waves wash away your hopes
this war-ship is sinking, and I still believe in anchors
pulling fist fulls of rotten wood from my heart, I still believe in saviors
but I know that we are all made out of shipwrecks, every single board
washed and bound like crooked teeth on these rocky shores
so come on and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember

I am the barely living son of a woman and man who barely made it
but we’re making it taped together on borrowed crutches and new starts
we all have the same holes in our hearts…
everything falls apart at the exact same time
then it all comes together perfectly for the next step
but my fear is this prison… that I keep locked below the main deck
I keep a key under my pillow, it’s quiet and it’s hidden
and my hopes are weapons that I’m still learning how to use right
but they’re heavy and I’m awkward…always running out of fight
so I’ve carved a wooden heart, put it in this sinking ship
hoping it would help me float for just a few more weeks
because I am made out of shipwrecks, every twisted beam
lost and found like you and me scattered out on the sea
so come on let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, just some tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember

My throat it still tastes like house fire and salt water
I wear this tide like loose skin, rock me to sea
if we hold on tight we’ll hold each other together
and not just be some fools rushing to die in our sleep
all these machines will rust I promise, but we’ll still be electric
shocking each other back to life
Your hand in mine, my fingers in your veins connected
our bones grown together inside
our hands entwined, your fingers in my veins braided
our spines grown stronger in time
because our church is made out of shipwrecks
from every hull these rocks have claimed
but we pick ourselves up, and try and grow better through the change
so come on y’all and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, we’re just tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember

(Lyrics pulled from here.)

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