The Superhero in My Backseat

So, we're moving. We're in escrow on two properties (selling one, buying one) and I've spent a few days vacillating between happiness and sadness, stuck in a bittersweet purgatory before we actually pack up and move. My husband grew up in this house, we got married here, two generations of babies in his family (him and his three siblings, and then our three kids) have been raised here. Countless Thanksgiving dinners, Passovers, Christmas lights, Halloween fun, birthday parties... it's all been here. I'm used to the constant back-and-forth motion of our girls running across the street to see their best friends, and then the entire 5-girl parade running back here to set up a lemonade stand or shoot a movie in the garage.

Yesterday, signing the papers to sell our house, I got really, really sad. My eyes were red-ringed as I drove my older daughter and youngest daughter to a Passover seder at my friend Ivy's house.

"I'm sad, and I'm happy," my oldest said, sitting demurely in the passenger seat in a very French outfit. It was like a happy/sweet foreign film, this small woman-child in nautical stripes, white scarf and bowler hat trying hard to smile with her freckles, mouth turning down ever so slightly.

"Are you sad, Mama?" my youngest asked from the backseat.

"Yeah, I am," I said. It occurred to me that I hadn't asked her about her feelings about moving in a few days -- I wondered if it had hit her yet, the idea of not being as close to her BFFs and kindergarten home base. "Are you?"

Like the crack of a firework, she shot back, "No! I'm excited!" Kind of like, "Is there anything else to be?"

I had to remind myself that change is important. For every fear-induced sad feeling, there are ten more excited ones. Nervous stomachs can mean excitement and firecrackers, too.

Thank you, Super Girl.