Uprooting the Roots

Uprooting your roots is tough. Have you ever weeded a garden and come across a weed whose roots are so deep that you have to brace yourself and give the weed a second muscle-filled pull to free the tangle of roots?

I’ve never tried to uproot a huge oak tree or anything 31 years old…but essentially, that’s what I’m doing right now. With the exception of one year in Ireland and one year in Chicagoland, I’ve lived in SB my entire life. Those roots run deep. So while uprooting, I find myself occasionally numb. Sometimes I’m fine. Sometimes I’m excited. Sometimes I have slight panic attacks when I realize what I'm doing and that, in two weeks, I'll no longer own that piece of real estate.

It’s just bizarre.

Jack and I spent the entire weekend packing in preparation for the big move. While packing, we found some weird things from our seven years in this house (or even weirder items from the nine years of our marriage. One, Jack was packing up the cedar chest. I’ll admit that I have a robust cedar chest, saving a lot of things that have even a remote semblance of sentimentality. Yet while wading through the greeting cards, graduation tassels, and pictures we made for our mommies, he found two sticks. Like, from trees out back. We could not (for the life of us) remember what the sticks were supposed to represent. The tornado that whipped through my parents’ back yard in 2003, devastating seven full-grown trees, and somehow sparing the brand-new pool? Were they from our first campfire at our house? Were they relegated to the cedar chest after the fireplace rejected them? Whatever the case, we couldn’t remember the story and relegated them to our current fire pit!

The other weird thing we kept finding was thermometers. We have no less than seven thermometers. Why would two adults (without children) have that many thermometers? And why were these things multiplying like bunnies? I distinctly remember having Jack buy a thermometer when I had my first illness of our married lives (a wicked, wicked flu thing in 2001) and cannot remember buying a thermometer ever since?

Packing has been a purging, yet nostalgic experience. Boxing up the photographs and photo albums took a couple hours because I had to flip through all the photos (what was with my hair in the late 90’s? Hadn’t I received the memo that poofy bangs were NOT in?). The most nostalgic part of the day was the wedding dress experience. Shoved in the furthest-most recesses of the coat closet was my wedding dress. I hadn’t pulled it out since, well, the day after my wedding. I had studiously put it back in its plastic bag, packaged up my veil and wrap, and stowed it until it went to the cleaners to be professionally preserved. That was nine years ago.

Anxious to see if my obscene stress has taken its toll on my body, I slipped into the dress. To my great relief, it fit the same as on my wedding day. Jack stood there like the kid he was when we got married and I posed for a few obligatory pictures in my dress (with dirty hair, I might add!). After ten minutes, I happily stepped back out of the dress….I had forgotten that the heap of satin weighs nearly 40 pounds! What a fun experience, though, to slip into that dress for the first time in nine years. And after that ten minutes as the blushing (but a little more experienced!) bride, I zipped the dress and veil back up into its bag. Jack promised me he will have the dress professionally preserved…I wonder if that will take another nine years?!?

As I drove back to Chicagoland this evening, with a car full of boxes, I realized that I'm living the song lyrics from the newest Lifehouse song...I'm "halfway gone."