Mea culpa

This is my open and blanket apology to all my friends and correspondents to whom I have not been in contact with or replied to.

I'm sorry.

You should see my inbox and answering machine messages; things are really piling up. I've been rotten at reaching out and replying and pretty much anything else which requires me to leave me little introverted and overwhelmed bubble. I feel pretty darn guilty about it all, but evidently not guilty enough to hit reply on an email or message or to pick up the phone.

I wish I could tell you what is up... because then I would know, too. I think it's a variety of factors. Still adjusting to our two new girls, adjusting to more of my children getting older and becoming adults, J.'s job change, the stress of contemplating moving, the stress of actually doing something about moving, missing good friends who have moved away, cold weather in springtime, too many unknowns, etc., etc. It all makes me want to curl up in bed with a stack of books and hibernate. I'm just not myself.

I tell you this because I really do mean to call or write or reply. Really. And then the day goes by and it's 11pm and it's too late to call and I'm too tired to write. And another day of guilt for not getting in touch with people I care about piles up. Please don't take it personally.

So there you go. The sad and pathetic story of the woman with no emotional margin at the moment. I'll get back to you all, really I will. I want to. Maybe it would help if I just had a card printed up that said something along the lines of:

• Yes, we're moving to the far western suburbs.
• No, we don't know when we're moving or exactly where.
• Yes, it will be hard because we've lived in our big ugly house for 16 years and in this area in J.'s case, his entire life or in E.'s case, over 30 years.
• Yes, our children are both excited and nervous.
• No, the house isn't on the market yet, we hope in another couple of weeks.
• Yes, it will be fairly horrible to have a house on the market with 10 children at home.
• No, I don't know how you do it, either.
• Yes, it's a special house, which means we will need to wait for a special buyer.
• No, the 1 1/2 hour commute is not fun or enjoyable.
• Yes, this is a huge change, and we will miss everyone here.
• No, there is not the diversity out there that we have become used to.
• Yes, we still need to find J. a different car.
• No, I can't plan a single thing because I just don't know what we're going to be doing.

This about sums up nearly every conversation I've had in the past couple of months. I guess I'm just tired of talking about it. I'm tired of saying out loud how up in the air our lives feel at that moment. It might be different if we had any sort of time line or details. 

Thank you for joining my virtual pity party. I'll just crawl back into my little bubble now.