Two weeks. In just two weeks, we say goodbye to my beloved Brooklyn Heights and set out to stake out a new life for three in Jersey. It kind of seems real, and it kind of doesn't.
My last day at the YMCA was yesterday. Joining the Y was one of the very first things I did after moving here in June 2011. I remember being almost gleeful about it; I was very proud of being a member of the Y because it is such a great community organization (and I kind of eschew the big gyms and always have). Will--one of the front-desk guys--was the first person I met there, and over the last three years, I've said hello and goodbye to him countless times. About a year ago, I finally got Hobey to sign up for the Y, too, and soon Will was saying hi to both of us. Hobey would get up super-early to play basketball with a bunch of folks who grossly underestimated the lanky Asian kid and came to love having him on their respective teams. I would follow, then go find him, and we'd walk home from the gym together, saying goodbye to Will on the way out. Now it's just goodbye. That makes it seem real.
I've been on a fruit-buying binge for the last two months, consuming pounds of white nectarines, white peaches, yellow peaches, black plums, grapes, bing cherries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, pineapple, and watermelon every day. The trusty Japanese/Korean produce stand on Atlantic has the very best produce around, and always at reasonable prices. As excited I am about living across the street from an A&P Fresh in Jersey, I'm not ready to part with what is simply known as "the Japanese place" in our household. That part isn't real yet.
And what of the friends we've made here? Calvin, Lisette, Elijah, and Zuri - our fellow fifth-floor neighbors... Wes and Diane, our fourth-floor friends who always have an interesting story to tell (and a fun magic trick to share)... Salah the friendly face who greets us at all times of day and night from Iris Cafe or Willowtown Store #7... Mohammed, the plucky Yemenite kid who works at the laundromat and wants to be an FBI agent... Kareem and Thuza, our cashier-friends at Key Food, whom we've seen grow and develop in pursuing careers in air-traffic control and accounting? How do we say goodbye to them? How can we just ... up and leave? Not real yet.
At the same time, working my way up to our fifth-floor apartment is getting harder and harder to do. I'm slower now, pokier, and I never know when I'm going to develop a random side cramp that makes me slow down to 90-year-old grandma pace. Sleeping is now the most painful part of the day, because keeping blood flowing to Junior means NOT sleeping on my back, and sleeping on my side means serious hip pain. On both sides. The stuffies are starting to ask me: "Three more months, and then we probably won't be snuggling at night like this every day, huh?" and "When do we get to meet Junior?" And of course, more and more people at work are figuring out that I'm actually only really getting fat in one area of my body (although, at six months, I'm surprised at how many people just haven't noticed yet--especially women!). We're doing more and more research on strollers, cribs, diapering, swaddling, birthing, feeding, changing... we're praying, praying, praying, praying. And the concept of Junior is becoming more real. I see pregnant people everywhere now. And I see little babies and think -- man, that's going to me in ... three months. *gulp* All that feels real.
So it's a mix. It's an odd mix. Because at the same time that all of that's going on, work is also busier than ever. Not kidding. Thank goodness my appellate brief is done (yay for diligently putting aside three months' worth of Saturdays for justice!), or else I think I would explode. Instead, I just race around the office day after day, putting out fires, chopping more wood, feeding more flames, cooking up meals, planting more trees... I'm taking my first deposition in a week. I'm defending a couple more in a month. I'm doing my oral argument before the Second Circuit in a couple months, unless our adversary gives me a chance to postpone until after maternity leave. LOTS going on. Lots of new things. Exciting things. Non-Junior things.
And it's like I lead a double life... expectant mom, ambitious associate. Homebody who plays with her stuffies and is seriously going to grieve time away from her stuffed children, busybee out making dreams come true. Diehard Brooklynite (of this part of Brooklyn, anyway), Jersey nester. No wonder it all feels kinda real, kinda not. Everything is a big paradox anyway.
And at bottom, I am grateful. I feel very lucky at this point in my life right now. As nuts as things seem at a granular level, I really am pretty happy with my life--most parts of it, anyway. It feels like an adventure, and I don't know where it's going. But for the most part, most of the time, I actually things it's going to turn out okay. And for that, I am extremely grateful.
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