It's late at night on a Thursday. I keep having to remind myself what day it is because everything is topsy turvy right now. A week ago, we were going about business as usual: taking books back to the library, arranging a trip to Magic Mountain for the next day, setting up a play date for the younger two. Today, we are in a new house, in a new town, about 2/3rds unpacked, the rest of our belongings (mostly books) still in boxes. Instead of listening to a few dogs barking, I'm listening to traffic on the busy street outside our window. The parakeets haven't made a peep in a few days. The 17 year old hates his dad and me.  I'm sick with worry about the baby drowning in the pool. The 8th grader is bitter. The 6th grader is angry. The 4th grader is clingy. The 10th grader is bossing everyone around.  The only happy kid is the oldest, who is still in Ventura working. He comes down next week, lives here for a week, and then heads off to college. The baby and I are going with him. It will be tempting to stay.

This is the worst part of being a military family. Ripping our kids, and ourselves, out of a community every two years is physically and emotionally draining. I keep thinking of Simeon's warning to Mary - my heart feels pierced times 7. Moving again, and again, and again doesn't make it easier, only more draining. We have more stuff, more memories, more stress and anxiety. More souls that want to follow their own wills.

I fret about our weight limit (we were a few hundred pounds under - but we loaded our car with at least 1200 pounds.) and discard things I wish we'd kept - like a rocking chair we got when our oldest was a baby, even though one of the rockers and a slat were broken.  I even mourned when we sold our junkie old Toyota Corolla - for more money than it was probably worth.  I am mourning the kids' Catholic school. I even considered homeschooling again, especially after the 6th grader asked for it, but he was the hardest kid to teach.

I know, I trust, that in a few months, we'll start to feel at home. Already we love the community library, which we visited on our third day here because unpacking books isn't happening until I figure out shelves. And my husband has safety proofed the stairs. The baby loves her room with toys - she didn't have a play space at the old house except in the garage.  But this house has unusual paintings.  It's on a busy corner. It has no yard. It has unsafe stairs and cupboards. And the rent isn't cheap.

So why did we choose it? It's big. The schools are supposedly good (smaller than most public schools, but lots of involved parents - which raises test scores) and close for everyone. It's a 15 minute bike ride from my husband's office. Kids are everywhere.  We couldn't find anything else in our price range that was big enough for our family and I was in reaction mode to the small house we lived in for two years.

Many people love this community here, but I miss the Catholic school where the teachers and the other students all recognized and cared about each other and shared at least the same mission to know, love, and serve God. I miss my job. I miss my moms group. I miss our fruit trees and I even, a little bit, miss the house that was a compromise.  And my heart aches for my senior, who would have been valedictorian of his class, was class president, and probably could have been student body president. He would have been eligible for several local scholarships, which won't be available here. He left his friend and band mate (who was off to Thomas Aquinas College anyway). And he left behind a girlfriend, which I'm a little relieved about.

But worrying about the stuff and the schooling is just a corollary of the different, bigger kind of worry about the state of the kids' souls. Will this challenge knit us together or will they hold this against us and reject everything we say and do and believe? Not only have their math lessons been interrupted and disconnected, but so have their lessons in the faith. Will they want to be like everyone else and let the world define them, or will they remember that in the big picture, they will pass out of the world forever, instead of just for a couple/few years, and their eternal home will be waiting only if they don't turn away know.

I think going to register at a new school was tough on everyone. We all were in tears at some point this week. Our experiences elsewhere should remind us that in a few months we'll be feeling happier about our situation. We'll start to make friends and figure our way around and find favorite things. We'll begin to dig into the community. And when it is time to leave this place, we'll mourn again. (But I won't miss the busy street...)