Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

We are now entering the portion of a monumental life change wherein everything is going well but I’m spinning out anyway.

I’m feeling the way I did a few months ago, back before I decided to finally take the plunge into low-dosage antidepressants instead of daily anxiety pills (I switched those to bedtime, tks). There was a moment–I remember it; I was sitting in the sunroom of our Atlanta home while the boys played around me and I was pondering all the shit that was going on in our lives and had been over the past few years and presently: breast cancer scare, miscarriage, 2 surgical childbirths, multiple surgeries on The Kid, one minor one for Little Brother, postpartum emotional and hormonal swings, and oh, AN IMPENDING MOVE ACROSS THE EFFING WORLD; I sat there and looked at my children and wondered why the hell I was waiting to get a little assistance if not only would it help me, but them in the process; and that is the story of my call to the doctor).

At that time, there were plenty of entries under the list labeled Difficult. SEE ABOVE. My nerves were frayed and someone always seemed to be sitting on the last one I had left. I felt perpetually at the end of my rope where, yes, I know God’s office resides, but even he at that point was all, “Sweetheart, GET THE DRUGS. They’re a gift, see.” (Sometimes my God talks like a gangster from the 40s, sue me). There was not a day that didn’t leave me feeling overwhelmed and fretful. And we were leaving our home for another one across an ocean.

So I got the drugs. And they helped. And they didn’t take away my ability to cry, which was a big concern for me (I love crying, as previously mentioned). And all was good. I mean, as good as it can be when you’re saying goodbye to everyone you love while crying a lot, right?

And then we moved.

Our first month here was a whirlwind of newness: new house, new accents, new words, new doctor, new church, new neighborhood, new car, new therapists, new babysitters, new people. I theorize that I was running off adrenaline and balancing it with wine and that this and grace got me through those days. Ahead loomed the transition I feared most: new school. Particularly, for TK, since LB just cruises around new locales in search of his next snack. But TK…I mean, nothing has been easy for him, you know? Every step is a big one and, in the process, a triumph. But to get to the triumph…

And we did. We are now to the part where his teacher knows him and his therapist loves him and, yesterday, we ran into two of his classmates on the way to school. The first, walking beside us, said “Hi, James!” with her red curls bouncing as she reminded me of The Niece, the silver bracelet on her wrist glinting in the sun. Seconds later, a voice issued from a nearby car: “HIYA, JAMES!” TK took these greetings in stride, grinning as I prompted him to return them, and he bounced ahead of me, knowing the way as I pushed LB in the stroller. He can’t wait to go to school every day. “I want to go to BEAUTY POINT PUBLIC SCHOOL!” he announces every morning, beaming as I help him slip into his uniform. We pass teachers and staff members who greet him by name. Another mom told me she visited the class yesterday and saw what a great reader he is. There is kindness all around us. On Monday, I sat in a monthly meeting of Team James, his cadre of therapists from the center we frequent twice a week, and what initially felt like an echo of tense disciplinary sessions from my Two Worst Years Ever, AKA my residency, became a conversation populated by people who really see TK, who know him in ways big and small after a month. I realized once again how much I interpret as threat what is meant as gift. I’ve finally met some other moms (mums) from his class at school and we’ve walked the blocks home after drop-off together, pushing our second-borns and commiserating over homework and all the other shared experiences that I wasn’t sure I’d get to partake of, even as I know that our path is different–but somehow still the same. Last night we met our neighbor and he mentioned getting together for wine. We really like our church, and I have, like, three friends! I don’t take pills to get to sleep (yet). I see the Pacific Ocean daily and I even have a local lap pool. I’m writing this from the deck of our home, overlooking our pool and a harbo(u)r. Everything appears to be going…swimmingly.

So why am I having such a hard time? Once again with nerves frayed, at the end of my rope, so easily overwhelmed?

This is Life 2.0: everything replicated in a different place. I suppose there are people who land in a new existence like this and look around at the sun and beach and say, “GREAT! Let’s get started!” These are probably the same people whose kids eat only healthy foods, who craft adorable homemade Valentines for each child in the God-forsaken school, and whose marriages are perfect. To them I say, from a distance and across a chasm, “Enjoy that.” I don’t do “new” well. I don’t replicate easily. I don’t LIKE it when it’s sunny all the time. (And it’s not here. Contrary to popular belief, this is not Southern California. So there’s that, I guess.) I see shadows and cracks. I overthink. I am shit at making crafts. Also, I hate making crafts. When the wonderfully kind mums from TK’s class bid me farewell after our perfectly pleasant conversation at our respective turning points, I breathe a huge sigh of relief (but not before inviting them to come over with their kids and play in our pool, because I am COMPLICATED).

There is a part of me that resents the ways this place is becoming our home, even as I am grateful for them: the places and the people that are gaining familiarity and are embracing us as we embrace back. There is a grief coupled with the gratitude. There is loss with the gain, because it is COMPLICATED.

I went through a similar depression a few months after arriving in New York. I thought it was purely a seasonal thing at the time, but maybe it too was a bit of delayed grief, even a form of guilt: I’m doing okay in this new place, and what does that mean? Back then it was less complicated: no stroller to push around, no tiny bodies to bathe each night, no emotional underpinning times infinity to everything I did. Here, I feel the weight not just of my adjustments, but theirs. We are doing life, all the parts of life that were big steps and little, difficult and easy, struggle and triumph, all over again. How would that not take a toll?

Every time new life comes, there is a death along with it. (God, that sounds depressing.) But it’s true–don’t make me quote Semisonic again. Some people have gentler grips than I do; they let things pass through their hands more easily. I’m still learning how to let go and hold on and when to know the difference. But I’m seeing the grace in the second time around: how when LB speaks, it’s so much sweeter because of how long we had to wait for TK to. And how, when they speak to and with each other, it’s like a damn symphony (notice I said speak, not whine). How TK’s propensity to make people cheer for him only gets sweeter with repetition. How flowers delivered in Australia look just as beautiful, if not more so, in a food container than a non-existent-in-our-new-home vase. How every sunset, while different, is the same sun. How grace takes no notice of time difference or distance as it carries us through grief and joy, always to the same place: home.