The things we shout out during sex when we are super stressed and preoccupied

Well, I can't believe it, but Chuck and I actually moved from Mulletville Lite — along with Junior, age 12, Everett, age 8, and Cam, age four. Plus one very old cat and one very grumpy dog.

That's where I've been the last month or so: packing, tripping over boxes, packing more, wondering how in the eff we accumulated so much shit, crying, leaping for joy, and unpacking.

I've also been Googling the snot out of moving topics, like:

Should we really have moved our family? Really?

Will my kids hate me for making them change schools?

When will I know I've made the right decision about ripping my children from everything they know and love?

Can we change our minds and move back?

When will it stop feeling like I'm in someone else's home?

Etc. Etc.

Making the decision to move from my childhood home and leave the neighborhood we had all grown to love was gut wrenching, but I had watched Chuck's health deteriorate the last few years from his long commute. Come Saturday, the man was laid out on the couch from driving 3+ hours a day from Mulletville Lite to New Haven.

When the new asshat governor was voted in and he started pushing for tolls and an increase in the gas tax, well, that was the icing on the cake.

Might as well hand over Chuck's paycheck, and his butt cheeks, to the state of Connecticut.

We'd been looking for a house for two years, but this spring, we really put the search on hyperdrive. We interviewed in other states (me, New Hampshire — too cold — and Chuck, Texas — too far away). We dragged the kids to open houses every Sunday. We chummied up to every realtor in the state, joining every MLS list we could.

During the day, Chuck and I texted each other potential homes with all the fervor and intent of lusty hornballs sharing porn. We scoured realtor.com and trulia.com and zillow.com with shameless abandon. It took MONTHS, and I worried I would shout out "Two car attached garage" during sex instead of "Yes! Yes!"

Thankfully we were so busy looking at houses, we weren't having much sex.

Then, this June, we found it: a house we could afford that was 15 minutes from Chuck's work. More than that, it was a house we could love. We went to see it three times. We brought our parents, then the kids. We put in an offer and bam, it was done.

So that's it. Two months later — exactly one week before school started — we fucking moved. And for the first month, I walked around our new house like, Where the hell are we? I expected someone to come home and ask us what we were doing in their house.

But we are growing into it, little by little.

It's an OLD house, with light switches in weird places and a shitload of cobwebs. For the longest time, if I had to find a switch in the dark, I put on kitchen gloves before I searched along a wall for the switch. I vacuumed up all kinds of leggy creatures. The attic looked like something out of Harry Potter. One night, while I was reading in bed, I watched a spider slowly slink down from the ceiling and land on my page. I contemplated having the kids sleep with earplugs, just in case a spider wandered...

...I can't even say it!

The windows are old, too. Some don't close at the top, which means all kinds of winged things sneak in. I have met every known species of moth. I'm sure, come winter, I'll have Swiss cheese for sweaters because, try as I might, I haven't been able to catch all the bastards. I'm sure, too, we are going to need those holey sweaters when the plastic wrap over the drafty windows stops working. But hey, we have Chuck, and his ass is intact!

So that's where I've been. Settling in. Trying to navigate new roads, enjoying the fact that Chuck is actually home for dinner and bedtime, and unpacking. Dear God, so much unpacking.

I can't lie though. Moving is hard. If you have kids, you have to help them adjust alongside yourself. We've experienced a rainbow of emotions, collectively and in our own spaces. I've thrown back a lot of vodka.

I try not to think about our old house too much. Like how the neighbors would text me if they noticed I left the side door open. I miss them so much my heart hurts. Or how I knew every creak of the stairs, the smell of every approaching season, the scuff marks on every wall, and the way the afternoon light filled the dining room. I watched my neighbors' children grow and vice versa. That house saw new babies come home, nine years of holidays and birthdays, new pets, old pets, snowstorms, hurricanes, flea infestations, Chuck's hemorrhoids...I could go on and on.

That house is part of me. (Like, duh.)

For fun, I went back in time on this blog and reread the post I wrote, nine years ago, about moving into that house. This is it:

Mulletville Lite is rampant with memories. I quiz myself: Would it be better to live somewhere totally new? Or is it preferable to go back to something I know? Does that make me small-minded? Will moving to Mulletville Lite mean my life is a record stuck on the same track of “remembers whens”? What about adventure? Exploration? The unknown?  

It looks like I'm finally going to get some answers to my questions. 

The part of the story where I dye my hair pink and get a nose ring. Alternate title: Does anyone have $100 they can loan me?

We spent a lot of time at my father’s house—which is soon to be our house—in Mulletville Lite this weekend. Our friends, Don and Matty, drove down to help us paint. On the way, they dropped off their two kids with their grandparents. I had to ask them, “Are you sure you want to spend a free night without your kids painting?”

Without hesitating they said yes.

Chuck whispered, “Do you see what’s ahead with two kids? Our idea of fun is going to be so watered down we’ll paint just to escape.”

I looked down at my big ass bump.

“It’s a little late for forebodings, dipshit,” I whispered back. We watched them pick their brushes. “Look. They don’t even know they’re not doing something fun. They don’t know it can be better. We’ll forget, too.”

That made him feel a lot better.

While they painted, Junior and I played with matchbox cars my father had saved from when my brother, Ted, was little. My father’s 90% done moving out, but he’s left plenty of "treasures" behind. Like boxes of school papers and old dressers full of clothes and toys.

God I need a drink.

After the smash ’em crash ’em car game, Junior and I looked out the window and watched the neighbor’s daughter, Rebecca, wash her car.

“Mommy used to take the school bus with Becky,” I told Junior. “And right there is where the school bus used to pick us up. In a few years, that’s where you might get the school bus.”

At dinnertime we ordered a pizza. While the happy painters and Chuck took a break, I went to pick it up.

“Mrs. Mullet?” the cashier said.

“Yes?”

“Omigawd your face hasn’t changed!”

Omigawd, it was Cheryl Blahblahblah. I’d gone to elementary school with Cheryl 30 years ago. Her face was still shaped like the moon. At my tenth birthday party she’d told our friends that she saw my father pick his nose. I’d hated her for that. Now there she was, in a plaid smock, selling me a pepperoni pizza.

After I left, I sat in my car for a few minutes.

Life suddenly felt like Sweet Home Alabama, minus a hot Southern fiance who wanted to butter my muffin.

Mulletville Lite is rampant with memories. I’m racking my brain trying to decide if that’s a good or a bad thing. I don’t know why I have to decide. I just do. I quiz myself: Would it be better to live somewhere totally new? Or is it preferable to go back to something I know? Does that make me small-minded? Will moving to Mulletville Lite mean my life is a record stuck on the same track of “remembers whens”?

What about adventure? Exploration? The unknown?

“There is none,” Chuck said later that night. We were back home in Mulletville. Everyone was in bed, including Don and Matty, who were spending the night.

“We’re going to have two kids,” Chuck continued. “It’s all about school systems and safe neighborhoods. Reliable cars and snow tires.”

“Snow tires?” I cried. “And you’re down on people who enjoy painting?!”

“It’s just the way it is.”

I refused to believe it. I told him as much. “Life can still be exciting with kids. I bet you one hundred dollars that Don and Matty are boinking their brains out in your man room right now. I bet they’re as wild and crazy as ever!”

“Ew,” Chuck said. “Impossible.”

“One hundred dollars.”

We crept out of bed and snuck down the hallway and then—I know, gross—we put our ears to the door.

Total silence.

Well, except for Chuck snickering his way back to the bedroom.