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Health & Fitness

Forever Renting in Santa Cruz

Moving is hard. It’s right up there with Death and Divorce and I’ve been joking lately that these three are intertwined, and moving can easily lead to the other two. If my husband’s reading this, I’m just kidding. Heh heh.

Now, I love my work, but the problem with freelance is you can’t take time off from deadlines in order to pack and move. At least I can’t. So I’ve been scrambling to get ahead in my work so that I can free myself up closer to moving day.

My stress and anxiety is at an all time high. Every morning, it takes less than 5 seconds after my eyes open for my stomach to tighten up with dread and remind me, Oh yeah, I have a lot to do today.

This move has been a long time coming but now, all of sudden, it feels like a train wreck coming on fast, and there’s nothing I can do but pack another box and make another pot of coffee.

Instead of realizing my dream to travel the world with my family, we are traveling all the different nooks and crannies of Santa Cruz, this being our fourth move since starting our family.

I’m done with my range of negative emotions, though. Disappointment that we can’t buy; that we have to rent…again. Sadness that my kids won’t grow up in one cul-de-sac neighborhood like I did. I can still return to the home of my childhood…not sure how many can say that, but my kids sure won’t.

As we pack, the house is getting emptier, more echoey, colder. It’s time to move on.

On the flip side, I can’t wait to move!

Can’t wait to be in our new digs and start making it our home.

Can’t wait to decorate. Do you know in all the houses we’ve lived in I’ve never put up framed family photos?! That’s all about to change.

Can’t wait to shoot an episode of my iVillage cooking adventures in my new kitchen. It’s really a downgrade from the dream kitchen I’ve had for the past three years. My new oven is so small, hardly any of my bakeware fits inside. I’m going from a 6 burner gas stove to an electric. But we’ll make adjustments and I’ll still be a real mom cooking in a real kitchen with real kids, right?

I’m excited for our new location and how my kids will all be at the perfect ages to explore it. We will bike, walk and hike more than ever. Instead of our nearby tadpole pond, we hear there’s a crawdad creek nearby. The ocean will be a hop, skip and a jump away. We will have a backyard…finally.

I’m excited for change. One example is my 4 children have always slept on the floor (don’t worry, I lay down clean straw for them every night) and now they will have real beds for the first time…bunk beds, no less!

I’m excited for new possibilities. New neighborhood kids to invite over…new neighborhood pets to get to know.

I’m excited to be moving close to a friend who is like a sister to me.

I’m excited for visitors and parties, something that we seem to always have no matter where we live.

I’m excited for sunrises and sunsets…I’ll be that much closer to some of the best around.

Santa Cruz is one of those places…affordable housing is impossible to come by. Many sacrifices have to be made to make it work. But this is home and I feel blessed to be surrounded by so much beauty and inspiration, both in nature and the people who cross my path. Now, more than ever, I need to take a deep breath and remind myself that life is good. And now I need to go pack another box.

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