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After looking for a home for three months all throughout Carlsbad and having no luck at all finding what we needed in our price range, Chris and I decided to buy a new home still being built in a master planned community. The plan was that we would stay in my parent’s home for three weeks while they were on vacation, and then we would travel down to Thousand Oaks for another 2 weeks to stay at Chris’ parents’ home before we needed to be in San Diego for school to start. In another part of the world And you may find yourself Behind the wheel of a large automobile And you may find yourself in a beautiful house With a beautiful wife Here we were in a brand new city, living with other people in their home and not enough space so our shit was shoved in closets and every nook we could find, and we hadn’t closed escrow on our brand new home, then Chris loses his job.

Well, I forgot to put the awards ceremony in my calendar, and if it doesn’t go in my calendar, it most likely won’t happen. The date of the ceremony was etched into my brain and I even thought I put it in my calendar, but when the day arrived, the awards ceremony was nowhere to be found in the swirling nebulous of my brain that is trying to keep up with my chaotic life for the past four months. I picked the kids up from school and Violet burst through the minivan door and said, “Mom! While I spent the afternoon silently torturing myself for missing her awards ceremony eight hours earlier, my kids were busy living life to the fullest in the present, thinking I am still a good mom.

Ava was on the job immediately and if you know Ava, you know that of course, she found the keys in the sand in the dark. There are times in your life when, despite your comfort zone, and despite the close proximity to your family, your cherished best friends, your favorite grocery stores, the familiarity of daily life, you know you need to make changes to bring new energy into your life and see the world in a different way. Over the past few years, there were enough events in our life that caused a ripple effect and led us to know that we needed to make a change. While Chris and I were running on the adrenaline of listing our house and trying to find a new home in Carlsbad, we hardly left any time to lament relationships that we knew would not be lost, but would certainly change.

The past 10 years have been very scary for me being pregnant with triplets and raising four kids, and I don’t know how much more scary I wanted to put myself through when I was finally feeling comfortable. Because every day isn’t a relaxing day at the beach. We had been all over the world in the past nine years, but we never went to San Diego. I knew that if I ever went to San Diego with the family I would want to move back there, and that just wasn’t possible.