At work a number of months ago, I attended this really wonderful training called Change Builders (I can’t find a website for it, otherwise I’d share it). Working from an organizational perspective, it addressed the tough realities of what happens within an organization when significant change occurs, moving through the stages of what was, what is, and what will be. There was a great deal of focus on what a mess “what is” is pretty much always going to be, no matter how well executed the change might be. The trainer talked about how the stages of grief are very real when any sort of major change is occurring, and the importance of allowing people to find healthy ways to cope with those feelings rather than trying to squash them or avoid them.

I have no idea where my workbook from that training went during the move, but I wish that I could find it because I’m struggling.

I know that we’re only six days in, but we definitely aren’t in love with Kalamazoo yet. I’ve been having lots of fears about this being the wrong decision and wondering if we’ll be happy here. Living in this weird in-between place with my parents is really tough, because we aren’t in our space, we’re on top of each other, and I think that we all feel a little bit trapped (my parents included). That said, the idea of making social plans and having to execute on them absolutely exhausts me right now. Everything about the “what is” is so overwhelming to me that I cannot even imagine trying to have a conversation with another person that isn’t wholly transactional.

Little things make me want to explode, and naturally I’m blaming them on Kalamazoo. Like the fact that in two days, as many random men have tried to come up and talk to me downtown. I blew today’s guy off successfully, but yesterday I had to sit and listen to roughly 10 minutes of this weirdo’s blathering about vagrants and his father and the Gilmores, and then was furious at myself for not telling him off when he noted that I was married but continued to go on and on about: “Oh are you a model? You’re so beautiful, you know guys, we can’t help it.” Jackass. And naturally I’m thinking about the fact that no dude ever, in any recent years in New York, bothered me on the street in any way.

Kristin is frustrated and grouchy about how her summer is unfolding, we both desperately need a true vacation (even though that isn’t a thing when you have kids) and we can’t find time to fit one in because work is busy for me right now and all of my vacation days are going to either the move or to her new teacher orientation in a couple of weeks when I have to stay home with the kids because day care doesn’t have room for them yet. No one is getting along, and I think that everyone would rather just retreat to their respective corners than have to deal with another human right now.

The kids honestly seem fine and unphased by all of this change, but the adults are pretty unhappy and I’m not sure how to fix it. I think that both K and I need someone else to pick us up and give us a hug and reassure us, and neither of us has anything left to give. We are both way past empty on empathy right now.

I got an email late this afternoon from the children’s museum in Connecticut that we love so much, and I almost started to cry when I read that there are both dinosaur and astronomy exhibits coming up in the next few months. I’m frustrated with our new day care (which the kids haven’t even started yet) because they’re unavailable two critical weeks this month when we need them, they’ve raised the prices significantly since we signed up, and I just don’t know that we made the right choice. I miss Gladys so much it makes me cry. I just miss what we had so much right now.