The most important thing to me in the moving process was that Zinashi would feel safe and secure the whole time. I feel like we've really hit our stride as a family, but moving across the country is a big deal for any child, let alone a child who has had her whole life disrupted once already. This is why I felt it was of supreme importance to have a place ready to move into as soon as Jarod needed to start work. We could have dealt with Jarod needing to begin work before we could join him, and we could have adjusted to corporate housing for a short period of time, but the bottom line was that if we could avoid both of those scenarios and move together, as a family, to the place we'd be calling home for the long term, that would be best for Zinashi. This is why I booked my plane ticket to San Francisco as soon as Jarod received a job offer. I flew in on a Saturday morning and back out the next Tuesday morning, determined to find a place for us to live. Obviously, that panned out. The funny thing to me now is that I didn't even consider that I wouldn't find a place for us. Now that I've watched several sets of friends look for places in this city, I realize how rare it is to find a place in just one weekend.
Once we had the place lined up, it was all a matter of talking about it. Because Jarod had interviews for such a long (long, long) time before being offered and accepting this position, we'd already had a lot of conversations about "checking out California and seeing if it's a good place for us." That was the groundwork. Once we had a place, there were photos we could look at, and we talked about how close we would be to the beach. I made the mistake of saying, "It will be like being on vacation
every single day," which made Zinashi think that we would be on a very long vacation. Once we had that confusion sorted out, there was a lot of reassurance to be done on our part, talking about how we were all going as a family, that all our stuff was coming, and that all our cats were coming, too. It was very important that we highlight all the things that would remain the same once we moved in addition to highlighting the way awesome things about our new city.
After that, we just had to do it and work with whatever fallout occurred. I'd say that one of our best short term decisions was to have my mom come out with us for the first week. It was so helpful to have someone here who could simply have fun with Zinashi while we got settled. I think that she needed to feel like this city was fun, and without my mom here, that would have been a lot harder to accomplish.
We were also purposeful about what we had here for Zinashi from the beginning. We knew would would be here for up to a week before all our stuff arrived on the big truck, so we sent a box ahead, plus packed a variety of her favorite toys in her suitcase and carryon, following our vacation guidelines. We kept a familiar blanket and favorite stuffed animals with us and made sure that one of her favorite animal bath towels was ready and waiting.
Once our stuff arrived, I made it a priority to get her room set up first. I knew that she would feel more comfortable knowing that her things had arrived, and having more things to play with would keep her occupied while I did the bulk of the unpacking. Even when everything was still a disaster, she found plenty of spaces that were just her size for playing in, and when everything was unpacked and set up, she got right down to business doing the things she loves best.
Zinashi has needed some extra reassurance as we have gotten settled, and we've seen a little bit of regression, but I'd say it has been minimal. She's needed to be held more, has had some emotional moments, and has requested drinks in a bottle, but all of that is tapering off now. Zinashi derives a lot of comfort from proximity, and that is one thing we can easily give her in the place we now live. I think that a lot of the time, our instincts tell us things that make sense before we can figure them out in a logical way. When I looked at this place, I somehow felt that it was better than the other one, but I couldn't put my finger on why. I knew that the
location was fantastic, but something about the actual living space itself just felt right to me. I've figured out now just what that was. I was recognizing the possibility of proximity in this space. Let me show you on the back of a chocolate bar wrapper that was conveniently next to me on the couch. This is the layout of our new place:
This is obviously not to scale.
By having all the entrances to the rooms centered around the main entryway, everywhere you are in the house feels close to every other place. And aside from bedroom to bedroom, you can see into each of the other rooms from whatever room you're in. This gives Zinashi a feeling of proximity to us no matter where we are in the house. She can play in her room and feel like she is close to us. Better yet, there is ample room to set up play space in the kitchen and still be able to work around the toys.
Do not be fooled by her expression; she was having a marvelous time. She just didn't want me taking her photo.
I honestly had no conscious recognition of this when I looked at the place; it just felt right. It felt like home. And it is. If the rest of our transition goes as smoothly as it's gone so far, we will count ourselves very blessed and lucky indeed.
