melting down.

i still haven't given up hope that on monday i'll be drinking my coffee in the new house...but at the moment i am flung on another guest bed feeling sorry for myself. i do realize that this is ridiculous. it's a very comfy bed, afterall; there's a rush of heat blowing from the vent, and our baby has a room to nap in. i hear myself reminding me that there are homeless people. people without a roof over their heads or food in their stomachs. families crammed together with make-shift tents under the freeway in new orleans. i am spoiled in comparison. but i also hear myself saying (sometimes more loudly), "I just want to go home."

it has been much harder being displaced than we anticipated. this month and a half has felt like a hundred days. i think all three of us have been in tears more than we feel comfortable admitting. eli has weathered this the best of us, actually. he's seemed to enjoy the changes of scenery...made a game of all the new rooms to explore and hosts to entertain.

we've just changed B's, having moved from the Brown's to the Bragg's. this move will be brief, however. we simply (i say simply) need to paint a few bedrooms this weekend and let the fumes die down so we can begin inhabiting.

i know we will be so thankful for this house once we are actually occupying it. i know the cat will do a happy dance once she's finally let out of the bathroom (she relocated also.) i know that at some point we will look back on this time and think of it as a lesson in perseverance, a time of growth, an adventure.

for now, we're standing wearily in paint-spattered clothes. i keep praying for my husband who is four steps past exhausted, wishing i could be of greater help. my job is to look after eli. most often this is a true joy, except for those days when we have to spend two hours in a paint store while Billy in his coveralls attempts to tweak a colormatch for the eighty-third time (how we ended up with field-mouse gray.)

that was definitely an "I just want to go home" kind of afternoon.

once we are home, i will share photos of the place. i will even invite you over for tea and tell you how it was all worth the struggle. some things in life aren't but this, i believe, will be one that is. and now that i have given myself this pep-talk, i should probably go dig out my toothbrush and get on with the day.