The Time Just Before the Beginning of Something New

Our dining room used to look like this:



Now it looks like this. An improvement, no?



While I'm at it, here's our "office" many months ago:


And here it is now. I think the end table covered in a dishtowel really sets the tone for the room.


We're moving! Actually, one of us has already moved. I've mentioned Oliver's new job. When talking about it though, I left out the part about the job being in the United States. New York City, to be exact. He's been living and working there for the last three weeks. I'm here alone in Toronto, saying a long goodbye and packing up our things. I'll be joining him at the end of the month.

Why am I still here? Why didn't I go with him? The answer to this question actually leads to news that (to me, anyhow) is even more exciting than the move to New York. The long version: we had to give 60 days notice to our landlord, and it ended up making the most sense for me to stay and work in Toronto for all those 60 days. When I move, I won't be looking for a full-time, adult job. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, actually. Something temporary I imagine, since come fall I'll be going back to school. Graduate school! I got into Library Science program at Rutgers!

Why the secrecy? It isn't a secret, really. I've been telling almost everyone I know about it - just not the people I know at work. The office politics have been especially fierce as of late, and it didn't seem like a wise move to let people know I was working my way out the door. I don't think anyone from work reads this blog, but a couple people might know about it, so better safe than sorry. This is the big day though, the day I give my notice. Everything is officially out in the open.

It's been so strange not to be able to write about all this. It turns out that I use this blog to process my thoughts - it's a journal minus the revealing personal information. When I wrote about shopping with Oliver for new work clothes, I really wanted to talk about the impending separation and how we would both handle it (turns out I really dig living alone). When I wrote about our snowshoeing trip in Algonquin, I wanted to talk about it in the context of it being the perfect venue for Oliver's last weekend in Canada. And three weeks ago, I wanted to write about our trip to the airport for Oliver's big flight to the U.S. and how I cried as we pulled our suitcases down the street and out of our little neighborhood. The tears had nothing to do with our separation, since it's a short one and there are two visits to break it up. I cried because I hated the thought of him leaving Toronto. This was our first home together. For the rest of our lives we will look back on our time in Toronto and remember the first year of our marriage and all the happiness that came with it. When Oliver boarded his flight it all came to an end, and it caught me off guard. He left me here in a strange limbo, not wholly here (because he isn't), but not at our next destination either.

Three more weeks of limbo, then it's New York. Or to be accurate, New Jersey. Details on all that later.