Teamwork

So a regular Left of the Dial reader—a Left of the Dialer? Left of the Dialian?—asked me how I managed to get Top Management on board with the big move. I mean, Virginia to California? That’s pretty big stuff. Just ask Top Management her own amazing self, who watched her entire house get tossed into a Mayflower moving truck yesterday.

The amazing thing is that Top Management was on board with the decision from the git-go. We both had and still have very, very mixed emotions about it. We both love Virginia, we love our neighborhood, we love oh so many of our neighbors and we love our house. But we've both always felt a little out of place there—it's a wonderful community, but it’s a very suburban one, and we're a bit too crunchy to quite fit in—and both enjoy the adventure of moving someplace new, discovering more of this amazing country of ours, even if the hassle of getting there is enormous and incredibly daunting (and expensive). Finding the cool new bookstores, the secret short-cuts from here to there, the neat parks nearby. It might sound odd coming from a guy who happily spent the last eight years in his basement, but new experiences aren’t just good for you, they’re also (often) just plain fun.

Still...leaving the Commonwealth? Our first house? The trees we planted? The friends we love? How could we do that?

We could do it because Top Management and I...decided? agreed? realized?...long ago that, to paraphrase Mister William Joel, together we're home. I was born in Dallas but grew up in New England. She grew up going back and forth between Denver and southern Georgia. We went to school in Virginia and she got her master's in North Carolina. We both lived various places in the NYC area, bopping around from Long Island to several different sections of Manhattan and then Queens and then back to a [very] different section of Long Island. My dad's family's from Iowa and Nebraska and Ohio, hers is from Alabama. So we're mutts, from all over the place. The only constant we have is each other.

We've lived in some terrible places, where the roaches were just unbelievable, fierce, fearless, mutated beasts what could swallow an entire toe in a quarter of a second, and where our landlords believed that heating an apartment in January made you weak.

We've lived through some terrible times, like when we thought the best-case scenario was that our then 21-month-old Max would maybe live to see her seventh birthday—maybe, if we all went through hell and were really lucky. Or that The Boy, now two-and-a-half years old, who spends his days running, would never even be able to walk.

And we've always managed to be happy. Because Top Management and I make each other happy. Why she makes me happy is obvious. Why I seem to also make her happy? A mystery. And yet there ‘tis. We're a team and that's what we do—it's our job and our purpose and it's...it's simply what we do.

A nice house is wonderful. A good neighborhood's a joy. Gorgeous scenery makes you appreciate the glories of the world. But at the end of the day, none of it means anything without each other. Which means the reverse is true: any place is just fine as long as we’re together.

So today she’s heading west. I'll wait here for the moving truck to arrive and then I'll fly to Denver and drive them the rest of the way. And we’ll cross mountains and deserts and we’ll see cacti and boulders and ravines and then the Pacific, filled with sea lions and pelicans and Kehaars. And we’ll finally head back to our new rented house, half the size of our Virginia house, bereft of that great southern lushness, the opulent humidity Top Management adores so, replaced by a semi-arid climate and new neighbors to meet and new pals to make and new trails to explore. A new coast, a new climate, a new time zone, a new something just about anywhere you turn. A big change. A huge change. Something of a risk, obviously. Maybe the move'll work out great. Maybe it won't. Who can say?

But none of that really matters. It's something to consider; it needs to be thought about. But it's not a deal-breaker, none of it, one way or t'other.

Because we’ll be together. I'll have my best friend in the whole wide world next to me again and she’ll bring along the greatest kids in the whole wide world with her just for giggles and there we’ll be. All of us, together. The whole team.

And everything will be just right. Because I'll have her. And that’s all I ever need.

Comments

[Jennifer]

I just left your wife's site with tears and my eyes and you've only added to them. Beautifully written. I'm so very happy you will be reunited soon.

[DT]

This belongs under glass somewhere. These are sentiments that so many of us have felt and feelings that so many of us have owned, but rarely has it been put on the page so perfectly. Be proud. Of it all.