Accept All Changes

When you're in the "track changes" mode in Word, there's a final step where you have to click on "accept all changes." Once you've done that, you're good to go. I'm just putting it out there that if the Universe could offer an existential app called "accept all changes," it would be a major hit. Worth way more than the usual $4.99 of the very dandiest apps.

Some people crave change. When there hasn't been change in awhile, they get restless. They rearrange the furniture of their home or of their lives; they switch things up. It must occasionally be a high price to pay: that restlessness. But then again, they have this nifty flexibility that those of us who generally say "Not for me, thanks. I'm good" to change, don't.

Laura and I are in each other's lives for very good reason. It's so trite: Yin meets Yang. Yin rides the brakes and Yang is lead-footed on the gas pedal. We each keep a hand on the steering wheel, and you know what? Despite the circuitous scenic route we inevitably take, it works. I pump the brakes whenever she wants to steer towards getting a goat farm in Vermont. "Say the word, P! Just say the word and we can do it!"

But Laura's foot is on the gas pedal, and instead of heading to the goat farm, she accelerates toward a job in New York. Of course she does; she needs to. I want her to. But the change is hard.

My separation anxiety is showing up in strange ways. For years, Laura has harped on the advantages of a good, warm, sleeveless vest in our chilly house in the winter. "Keeps your core warm!' she says. Core schmore. My arms are cold. Not for me, thanks. I'm good. Puffy vests have always seemed like those sleeveless turtlenecks. Make up your mind already. You don't get to be winterwear and summerwear. But in the face of our impending lifestyle change, suddenly I had to have a vest. I wear it all the time now.  I know this weird change of clothes and heart came from separation anxiety. My new vest is keeping some kind of core of me warm.

Okay, everyone gets to change their mind about something like a vest. Stranger is my new fondness for goat cheese. All my life, goat cheese has been repellent to me. My beloved brother Lee had two goats when we were young. Their names were Nova and Capricia, and they were mother and daughter, as I recall. Lee built stalls for them in the barn, and fed them and routinely cleaned up the Milk Duds they dropped everywhere. Sometimes I would walk to the barn with him in the dark of night to keep him company. Do you know what goat stalls smell like? Go to Whole Foods, back in the cheese section, over there to the left. Open up that little roll of a package, and you can bring Nova and Capricia back to life. 


Laura has always had to double wrap the goat cheese she insists on buying. If I smell it in the fridge, I have a flashback to the poopy stalls of yore. But suddenly, as I anticipate Laura's being away 4 or 5 nights a week, I'm liking the goat cheese. You just have to believe me; I know it's related. 


We are having more long talks than ever, which, were you to be a fly on the wall, would astound you. The flies on our walls know that Laura and I talk all the time. That's all we do; we walk and talk. Sometimes I think the only reason I have a counseling practice is to engage in deep talk because Laura has other things to do. 


I've worried about feeling left out. I hardly, hardly ever feel unhappy about being left out. Leave me out of most social gatherings, I beg of you. But the people at her new school seem smart, kind, and funny. They'll probably engage in witty banter. Waah, I want witty banter, I wail to myself. I'll just be this phantom spouse who lives in Connecticut (snort). Connecticut!? Might as well be a goat farm in Vermont, to New Yorkers.


Yesterday I picked a fight with Laura about my feeling left out of the action. It's not her fault, but sometimes it's hard. There are announcements and press releases and cocktail parties being scheduled in her honor. I am doing things like advising whether the invitations should include her middle initial or not. But our fights are so gentle; neither wants to hurt the other, and we are excruciatingly careful of fighting fairly. I open with this: "I think I am not doing a great job of expressing my needs." Pow! What a punch.


Poor Laura is trying to help me work through this separation anxiety. On today's walk, she asked me to think big about my life. To someone who doesn't crave change, that's a funny question. "What's your biggest, biggest fantasy for your life, P?" she asks, eyes wide with enthusiasm. I think hard, and then say, "To see clients only two days a week, and to write the rest of the time." A beat, and then, incredulous, she asks, "That's your biggest fantasy?" To her, I think it was like she had offered the best meal of all time, and I had ordered oatmeal, with walnuts, blueberries, and maybe a dab of butter (actually sounds pretty good, doesn't it?).


Next time she asks--which she will, because Yang likes questions like these--I will tell her the deeper truth. My biggest, biggest fantasy is to be able to gracefully accept all changes.

apartment hunting

Laura and I have been apartment hunting. We have driven to New York four times in the past 12 days. I'm afraid we are leaving a terrible footprint, like one left by huge galoshes in mud, with all this driving. Generally I drive about 12 miles a week, to and from Whole Foods on Sunday. Maybe twice that if we run out of kale mid-week. Now we are just burning gasoline like crazy.

We are getting the opportunity to watch the progress of various construction projects along Route 84. We also have learned where the hawks generally hang out, and have clocked distances between any number of towns. We've begun to notice things off the exits that we've never noticed before. "That toilet was decent. What exit number was that?"or "Hey, I just saw a hardware store right off that exit. That'll be handy."

On the first trip, we looked at 8 apartments; among them was a two-bedroom co-op that we fell in love with. The owner accepted our offer and three days later we drove back to have it inspected. This was less than a week after Laura had gotten the job; we were moving quickly.

It wasn't until we got the disappointing news that we don't qualify for a mortgage (of ANY size!) that we began to see that we were moving TOO quickly. Maybe we were about to make a big emotional purchase anyway. Maybe we shouldn't get a place that big, if just Laura is going to be there most of the time and is coming home for weekends. Maybe getting excited about that place was a way of coping with the separation anxiety. Maybe we were too excited about Laura's having gotten the job. She'll be getting paychecks again! Woo hoo! Let's get sushi and buy an apartment!

Turns out the bank is attached to paychecks, too. Actually, they are mostly attached to the "two most recent paystubs." Which we don't have, since Laura is taking the year off and I work on my own. So no mortgage. They weren't even impressed by the nice contract letter signed by the nice Head of School on nice school letterhead.

So we have to figure out a way to buy an apartment OUTRIGHT. That's a bit of a game changer. For some reason, we are no longer stumbling upon apartments we love.

Looking for an apartment is a weird process no matter how you slice it. One place, for example, was completely empty except for a case of beer in the fridge and two large closets filled with dozens of identical black suits. It would have to be an otherwise perfect place for me to get past that. I dunno.

You end up making choices based on things you'd rather not admit to; like the apartment we said "nahhh" to because the welcome mat for the place next to it said, "WELCOME TO MY CRIB" and three doors down, the not-so-welcome mat said, "POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS." I don't know; I feel bad about it, but it didn't feel like home to me.

We've made another offer on another apartment, about half the size of the one we loved. It needs lots of work. And if you go outside and walk about 30 steps, this apartment has the same view that other one did. Except with that first apartment, you could have the view while you were inside, which was a nice feature. But Laura and I are learning a lot about letting go.

More soon. Laura is away for a few days, and I'm thinking too much about being apart next year. If I hadn't had the blog tonight, I'm afraid I would have gone out for a drive.

The walk worked

Saturday morning she got the call, and today we got permission to tell our world: beginning in July, Laura will be the Principal of the Upper School at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City. New York is the place where all the people live, and where they know how to dress. I'm told that in some parts of New York, little girls can walk in heels by the time they're 10 and little boys can tie a tie. The people have learned not to say hello to other people on the street, and it works for them. Saves a lot of time, I guess.

We both have a lot to learn.

Fortunately, the school itself seems quite friendly and down-to-earth. Fieldston is a progressive school --and actually I should put that in caps. Fieldston is a "Progressive School," which is an Actual Thing you can Google. The search committee members were very warm and kind at the meet-the-spouse dinner, and seemed to want things to go as smoothly as I did. They seemed to follow my mind and its wanderings. And most of them ordered the flan, too. I think we will get along well.

Laura and I will get to see what it's like to be together only on weekends, a serious downside to an otherwise fantastic turn of events. I think my blog may become my best friend in her absence, so don't go anywhere. Despite my genuine happiness about the job for Laura, I had several nightmares last night -- testament to my anxiety, I suppose, about all the changes afoot. The bottom half of my face fell off as I tried to ask for help, for example. I hate when that happens.

But overall, we are very happy about this upcoming adventure. It is important to mention, since I ranted in my previous post about the glass ceiling on Laura's career, that the Head of Fieldston wrote in his announcement to our new community: Please join me in welcoming Laura, her wife, Dr. Paula Chu, and their three grown children, Yani, Ting, and T’ai.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: you've just got to love evolution.