View from the Houseboats

This was one heck of a week, complicated as it has been for the last 3.5 years, with good and hard laminated like croissant dough. But for once: a lot of good news!

Last Sunday: I turned 40, with celebrations squished between seeing potential houses and emotions. Thursday/Friday: a number of last-minute scrambles for work stuff, a mix of panic, adrenaline, and efficiency. Luckily, because I had blocked off time in my calendar for thinking & writing, I was able to accommodate these urgent and important tasks. Friday: A colleague/friend/mentee got a big-deal award. Saturday: In the middle of dinner, we finally had an offer accepted for a home, after looking at 150-200 houses over the last year and bidding on at least 20. Disbelief, shock, and gratitude that it’s a townhome less than a mile from where we live now, keeping us close to my mother and our current life routines. Theo was ecstatic when we told him. This buys us additional time for healing, for the stabilizing we were aiming for, and is far preferable to what we were bracing ourselves for (job searching to leave the Bay Area due to cost of living). To be transparent, this will only possible because of the largess of family. And yet life transitions also bring grief, for the people no longer present to witness and celebrate, and for leaving behind such a meaningful home. Meanwhile Theo’s been working through some complicated concepts too: truth and loss and death and belief and friends. He’s been recalcitrant, obstreperous, and up late more than a few nights, with family meltdowns ensuing. But at least we have chocolate.

Gratitude

• A new home!

• Leaving the moldy mildewy parts of the houseboat that are making us all allergic/sick 

• Enough flexibility in our schedules to be able to accommodate this sudden, profound change  

• This week we submitted a qualitative paper (that’s been at least 4 years in the works) to an ambitious journal and it hasn’t yet been desk rejected. 

• Tonight, for my mother getting Theo to sleep early after we gave up on a celebratory dinner 

Small goals for next week

• Wellness: 3x cardio

• Grant: Spend 2h revising aims 

• First author: finish drafting results 

Thinking of you all, and hoping you are well