Shiny and New

 Today, I went to the DMV to trade in my Texas license for my Illinois license.  I was unable to do so because I needed my birth certificate or my passport, both of which I somehow threw out while purging for this cross-country move.  Yep.  Tossed them along with my SS card, the kids' birth certificates, my marriage certificate, and divorce decree. I am still mad at myself for doing that. I could have gotten an ID, but not a verified ID, and everyone needs a verified one by May and why on earth would I come back to do this again in a few months?  I was also unable to change my plates over because I needed a ridiculous amount of paperwork I didn't have.  The woman looked me in the eye, sighed, and said "Welcome to Illinois."  I went to my car and sighed and then cried and missed Texas.  My heart was wailing like Sandy Cheeks in a Spongebob episode, "I want to go h-o-o-o-o-o-me, to Texas."

I am very glad to be here with my person and doing this adventure with love and laughter and a beautiful partnership. The part with him and being new and doing this together?  Beautiful. A+. Chef's kiss.  The flip side where absolutely everything in our life is new?  That is where it gets sticky.  New is exciting!  New is an adventure!  New is scary!  New is also exhausting.  Where should we eat?  We don't know!  Best place to grocery shop?  Still can't tell! Should I grind my teeth into oblivion at night or find a dentist?  Obviously, I made an appointment but I did spend some time thinking about how I don't want to find a new dentist and that this one better not try to pry all my old fillings up and tell me I need new ones like the last new dentist.  Scary was finding a new hair person and eyebrow threader.  I'm no more vain than any other middle-aged woman whose body is falling apart, however,  I was moved into action by not wanting to look like a sea witch with a unibrow.  I am loyal when I find good service and I have had my eyebrows threaded by the same amazing woman for at least fourteen years. I felt like I was cheating on her even if she is 1000 miles away.  My hair turned out and my eyebrows did too. I am sure the dentist will be fine and the new doctor can sign their name on my much-needed Zoloft refill as well as my last doctor.  

New choice after new choice after new choice is not as liberating as one would think.  Last week, we found an amazing Indian place to order food. We were thrilled with dinner and I obsessed about the cauliflower all week long.  My person mentioned it was expensive but I was chewing in bliss and missed that, I guess.  I went to order it again last night and sucked all the air out of the room when I saw how much it was.  That is a once-a-month treat, tops, not every Friday.  I sat there and just wanted food I knew.  I wanted tasty, inexpensive Tarka.  I wanted a Chicken Fundido taco from Taco Deli.  I wanted to sit with a bowl of Torchy's queso on my lap and swim tortilla chips through it and ingest 10,000 calories before I even opened my taco.  New is fun, but after a long week of work, sometimes you really just want to eat your weight in queso.

School is all new too.  We have gone from teaching high school to teaching middle school.  Honestly, some days it feels like teaching in an entirely new language.  Yes, my personal children were once middle schoolers and I remember that age.  However, I was never in a room with 26 of them following their lunch and trying to get them seated, not touching each other, and not yelling weird words they made up across the room as I tried to impart directions.  The transition time is a nightmare and don't ever, ever let them have a moment of downtime. They can also be very sweet and I am enjoying how they actually listen to what I have to say one-on-one.  That is really nice.  And that most of them actually read during silent reading time!

I am also getting used to knowing everyone I worked with very well to being the new person no one knows well.  It speaks a lot to my school that so many people have been there 10, 20, 30 years. It also makes me feel very new and finding where I fit.  Everyone is welcoming and kind and I eat lunch with people but I miss the sense of familiarity that came with working in the same place for eleven years.  The way I knew students and staff and they knew me.  I am not saying I was a rock star but a B-list celebrity for sure.   I feel very lucky with my school because my person's school is not as lovely as mine and he has to do a million more new teacher things and all that new is exhausting to even hear about.

I realize I haven't mentioned my kids.  That is not a new missing; I've been missing them for a few years now.  But I do miss them in a new way.  I am trying to decide how to do the holidays and when I come back and where I will stay and should it be right at Christmas or before?  Do I fly to Dallas and get the boy and drive to Austin?  Or fly to Austin and have him choo-choo train there?  All new choices.  All new feelings to the holidays and they aren't even here yet.

I know that things will get settled.  That we will find a place for queso and another for Indian that isn't so pricey.  We will find dentists and doctors and all the service people we need.  And we will like some more, some less, and everything won't be new, new, new. Things will start to feel familiar and comfortable and not as exhausting.  Until then though, I will just let all the newness swirl and swirl and swirl until I am overwhelmed and then cry like Sandy Cheeks when I need to. Because after I had a good car cry, I took myself to Starbucks and got something familiar.  After that, I came home and crawled back into bed with my person and told him about all the things and ended up laughing and that felt very right.