Waiting for Bumpy

I’m sitting in the cell phone lot at the airport waiting for the text from my father to tell me his new, non-malfunctioning plane has landed. And I will take him home to see his grandson who, outside of Skype, he hasn’t seen since late December. They will spend the weekend reuniting while Jared and I pack. Because we haven’t started packing at all. And the truck comes on Tuesday. And leaves the next day with however much stuff we’ve squeezed in there, packed or not. And it will drive across the country with 95% of our things until we follow by car and plane within the week. And the overwhelmingness I feel is overwhelming.

But before all that, right now, I’m waiting for a text. I’m feeling the sun beat on my right arm and listening to planes land. I’m trying to ignore the shaved head, tattooed white guy in the black Jeep next to me who sporadically sits up from his reclined seat and stares at me. I’m texting my friend who suggests I talk loudly about Bumpy coming because it could sound like a gangsta name if you didn’t know it’s Henry’s nickname for his grandpa. And the man is out of his car now, standing on the charcoaly, so-hot-it’s-soft pavement to put his shirt on, sit on his front bumper and smoke a cigarette.

I hear cellphones ringing and beeping around me and cars pull out of the parking lot to pick up their people. In a week and a half, I’ll be on a plane with Henry. Even though he’s flown a lot for an almost two-year-old, I’ve never flown with him alone. I’ve never changed his diaper on a plane or in an airport. I’ve never managed luggage and him. These are the things I get caught up in. These are the thoughts that twist behind my ears.

Not the fact that we’re leaving. That once that plane lands, I will live in Maine. And I won’t work at San Diego Writers, Ink and I won’t work at Words Alive and I won’t live in the home that I moved into (for the first time) when I was 13. And I’m not sure how to live inside being incredibly excited to live somewhere, but in denial about getting there. That being there means not being here. That unpacking means packing. That arriving means departing. The opposites existing together, at the same time.

So I will pick up my dad.

And I will pack the house.

And I will have our “we got married and we’re moving to Maine party.”
And I will find somewhere for our cat to live.
And I will sell my car (maybe).
And then I will get on a plane.
And then I will live in Maine.