Please welcome my friend Angela today! She is a former middle school teacher who can’t let go of paper calendars, colored pens and dreams of writing women’s fiction. Find her at AngelaAmman.com where she melds together a love of reading, writing and the lovely miscellany making up her world. Procrastinate with her on Facebook or Twitter and write with her on Write on Edge, where she’s a managing editor of a creative writing community.
My fingers fly over the itty bitty keyboard: texts to my realtor and to Ryan, thoughts spilling so quickly I finally pick up the phone. I retreat to the office that used to be a toddler-room-turned-playroom in hopes of an interrupted conversation and feel my blood pressure creep nearly as high as the humidity levels.
I critically eye the room dimensions of my daughter’s three story dollhouse and wonder if the kids would mind moving into the cardboard home. I obsessively study floor plans for new homes in a community that would be absolutely perfect except for that whole “forty miles from where we want to live” thing.
In my brain, the part that still functions approximately three minutes out of every hour, I know this isn’t the worst position in which to find myself this summer. We’re healthy, we’re together, we’re days away from closing on a house we never expected to be able to sell.
Four walls shouldn’t be so difficult to find; there are houses stretching out in each direction from my front door, yards waiting to welcome new Adirondack chairs and late-night conversations. But bidding wars and priority lists that change each day that ends in “y” mean we’re unsure about where we’ll be living after we leave our current home.
It’s stressing me out.
Summer gallops forward, regardless of my personal stress level, so I’m doing my best to keep my worries in the darkness.
My husband and I quietly close the door after the kids are in bed and marvel at the oversized, overbright, overbeautiful Supermoon.
Sponge toys and sprinkler pads pull us forward into the sunshine.
I shove dishes into the dishwasher, pull my wet hair into a ponytail, and foil the rain by meeting friends at an indoor bounce house guaranteed to tire even the bounciest of children.
The kids and I pull our chairs to the same side of the table and color together, trading crayons from the same box. My mind is still racing around the house situation when I hear my daughter remind my son, “If you take your time, it’s easier to stay in the lines. Slow down your coloring!”
Her insight is fleeting – moments later they’re squealing and racing around the dining room table and wrestling over the copper crayon. But her words echo in my head: take your time, slow down, and enjoy the picture you’re creating.
