A few weeks ago, I stopped getting texts from my friends.

Not all of them; just two in particular - two of my closest friends in my town, the two friends I made when I first moved here. We started hanging out because we all have sons the same age, and then we kept hanging out because we liked each other so much. And now we just hang out, because we're a part of each other's lives and that's that.

One of the things I was really worried about when we left the city was making friends. I wrote about this a lot: I had this vision of spending playdates making stilted conversation with "friends" who were really just people I hung out with because it was convenient, not because either of us actually wanted to. And then I met my friends - those two women I met when I first moved, and then another and another and another - and they were smart and thoughtful and funny and compassionate and made me feel like I could talk to them about anything at all, and so I did.

Six years ago, when my life changed, it started with a chair.

I've written here many times about the struggle that life in my late twenties was; how crushed I felt by the weight of just how much I had turned out to not be what I'd hoped to become. I was stuck in a job that I hated, in a life that felt millions of miles away from the life I'd dreamed of as a little girl, and there was a time - a long time, actually - when I couldn't see how any moment in the future could possibly bring with it something better. Or even something different.

And then, at a party late one night, I met a girl who did something called "blogging." I'd heard of blogging, sort of - I mean, I had a rough idea of what a blog was, had even started a hidden Blogger account documenting my worst dates (oh my god), and read Perez Hilton like it was my part-time job - but I certainly didn't know it was something that one could even consider doing for a living. And yet this girl seemed to, somehow...and at that moment I was so desperate for something to change that when she asked me to do an "audition" of sorts to become a contributor for her site, I said yes without a moment's hesitation.

We're about halfway packed - my strategy is to do at least a couple of boxes every day - and about five weeks from the date of our departure (officially May 21st), and the house is starting to fill up with emptiness.

It's hard, watching these rooms that I put together so carefully - and loved so much - get broken down. Dust from the endless boxes getting dragged up from the basement is settling into the cracks along the sideboards; all the photos are wrapped up in plastic; we're eating meals off of the same four dishes every day, because they're the only ones left that I haven't packed. With each passing day, our house feels less like "our house," and more like a place we're staying in for the time being, before moving on to the next thing.

And not knowing what that "next thing" is - because we still don't* - makes it harder to let go of what we do know.

Alright, so here's the big take-home from our house-hunting trip:

I have to get real.

Like, really real.

This trip has not gone exactly as I planned.

I had this fantasy of what was going to happen: we were going to spend a couple of days looking at every house on the market in a good school district within our price range (which is a total of about twelve), then spend a couple of days making offers and dealing with logistics while also slotting in some fun - a trip to the Children's Discovery Museum, maybe, or the pony farm at Half Moon Bay. (I'll write about how the house hunting part went later; I'm feeling all superstitious and want to see how it comes out in the wash before I make any predictions.)

And then that "carsick" thing that I mentioned the other day? Turned out to be one of those 24-hour bugs. And on the way to urgent care with Indy at 7AM to make sure it was nothing more than that, I discovered that whoops, I had it too (and let me tell you: I discovered this in basically the most dramatic way possible; I won't go into details because eww, but…EWW). So post urgent-care, we spent the day doing literally nothing while doing our best to inhale as much Pedialyte and water as possible, respectively. We did so much "nothing," in fact, that it became actually kind of fun in its own way - our B&B was cozy, and airy, and there's something to be said for a day of cartoons and not much else.

There was even one moment, right before we went to bed, when we were laying on the pillow and looking at each other and just smiling, and Indy reached out and stroked my cheek, in exactly the same way I stroke his when he's feeling bad. It made the entire day - this whole trip, this whole move, this whole life - just…worth it. Kids have a way of doing that, right when you need it most.

I write a lot here about how nervous I am about this move. How I wonder where we will live, and how my work will translate to a whole new state, and how our life will look once we're out on the other side. I write about me me me because this site is about many things but mostly what's going on in my head, but trust me:

It does not escape me that this is a big deal not just for myself and Kendrick, but for the whole family. And mostly for Indy.

We're out here in South Bay (is it "the" South Bay? Or just "South Bay"?) house hunting and getting to know the area we're going to live in better, and yesterday we were at lunch, and I looked at my son and thought what a cool thing, you know, getting to go on a trip all alone with him. Before Goldie was born I spent a lot of time wondering whether I'd ever get this again - this special time just hanging out, just us two - and while I don't feel like the time that we get to spend together has lessened now that she's here, it's still not all that often that I get to sit with him, asking him questions and listening to his answers and just being there.

That's why I decided to take him with me, you know: because he's going to remember this. And I want him to know that he gets time with his family, time with his sister, time with his dad, and time with me - all of us get to have adventures, together and separately and every which way. I thought about this trip a lot when I was in Florida with my own dad. I hope I get chances to spend time like this with my son forever.