And then the time came for us to leave…

I was pretty successful at maintaining a reasonable stress level up until I committed to a departure date, which I’ve got to say, I had a hell of a time doing. Committing would mean I would actually have to leave. My parents kept asking, the friends moving into our house after us kept asking, and I kept giving a window. Once I admitted I would leave on July 2nd, I knew I had to kick it into high gear and I knew that all this moving talk would have to become a reality. I had tried in the weeks leading up to moving, to keep a balance in our home as far as what was packed and sold and the timing of it all. There was much we weren’t using on a daily basis and I knew could be packed away, but we were still living there and I wanted it to still feel like home, for me and the kids. The last two weeks, I knew I would have to lose the balance and start cleaning out, packing up and taking people up on their offers to watch the kids while I did just that.

This was my process. 1. go through every cupboard, drawer, cabinet, bin and box in the whole blasted house. 2. determine if the contents inside said cupboards, drawer, cabinet, bin or box was worth keeping 3. if it was not (sooo much was not, it is remarkable how much money we spend on crap) throw it out, give away or put it in the ever growing Goodwill pile. 4. If it was worth keeping where should it go, Saudi or storage? 5. Label every cupboard, cabinet and drawer in the whole blasted house," Saudi” or “Utah”. That way when the movers came there would be no confusion as to what went where. 6. Put it in the appropriate pile, drawer or cupboard.

I learned a few things in the process. 1. I have fairly big muscles. I collapsed shelves, moved heavy furniture and boxes all by myself. Again, amazing what you can do when you don’t have a choice. 2. Organization is THE ONLY way to move and not lose your freaking mind. 3. I am not sentimental about ‘stuff’. I am my father’s daughter. 4. Again, the amount of money our culture (and the Hunts) spend on meaningless crap is horrifying. I couldn’t believe the amount of stuff that we threw away and or gave away and I already don’t remember. I commit to not buying meaningless crap. As much. 5. Labeling cupboards, breaking down shelves in the garage and creating piles that say, “Utah” and “Saudi” will make me cry on my best day. No Laguna Niguel pile is a heart breaker.

The movers showed up bright and early on Thursday, June 29th. I cried again. I’m telling you, I kept the flood gates locked up and closed for a long time, but starting at my “commitment” to move date, there was a slow leak up until the day of departure where they busted wide open.

Bode thought all his wildest dreams had come true when that big truck pulled up to HIS house. Tessa spent the day with her BFF Kendyl, Bode with our friends the Myers and I spent the day in and out with Sal and John and finishing up loose ends.

Off it drove, hopefully to be seen again in a few months, in a distant country. It is not an easy thing to watch your life as you know and love it drive away, knowing that it will never return in quite the same form. I don’t want to suggest that life should maintain the same form for all our years, in fact, I think quite the contrary. Life should ebb and flow, people should come into our lives and teach us things we didn’t know before and opportunity should present itself and be grasped in all it’s different frameworks. We do not grow with in our comfort zone, we do not stretch inside our box, and we do not realize our full potential by staying in our same form. I know all this as well as I know my own name. I am waiting for it, I think in vain, to get easier. Laguna Niguel was where Wade and I made home. It is where we started a family, where our children were born and grew. It is where Wade started his career and where I started mine as a mother. It is where we developed friendships that became family and where I feel like we became, “The Hunt’s”. I can say with no certainty that we will go back there. I certainly could not have said 12 months ago that we would be off to the Arabian desert in the summer of 2012, and yet, it feels like this is what we were meant to do all along. I have never developed an emotional attachment to a place, like I did there. Saying goodbye to friends was incredibly difficult for me, I could barely look them in the eye. It is the memory of them and the hope that we will remain such forever that gives me the confidence to try and create such an atmosphere of fondness and rapport in a new place. It’s probably betraying my Utah roots, but when I am asked clear over seas where I am from, I am going to say Southern California, because right now, that’s the truth.