Saying Goodbyes

The next time I post, I will likely be with RC in Atascadero! This time is filled with significant endings, mainly in the last week and upcoming week,  that I want to share...

1. Spring semester at my school came to an end. It was a big push with a couple of my students to get their work completed to graduate. Also, we had online courses that were "self-paced" (translation: "nightmare!"), which had to be crammed to completion, as well. So I spent a lot of time herding cats, but graduation on Thursday was special and meaningful, and we got through the semester!
2. Related to the end of the semester, I will be giving notice at the community college in the near future. I feel less sure of that, since I was given an abundance of classes to teach in the Fall and went through three interviews before I was offered this job. It's a great school, great area, and a tough one to leave. But having a partner and a family takes precedence, and if I can find employment with the university in Oregon, that will be even better. I applied for unemployment on Friday, based on receiving no summer assignment, and will give my notice as soon as that is established.
3. After all the intensity of celebrations and goodbyes on Thursday and Friday, I had my last Chalice Circle group gathering at the UU church I've been attending in Petaluma. The theme was goodbyes and OMG y'all, I was so exhausted I was falling asleep in the initial round of sharing. It didn't help that everyone was sharing about the most impactful deaths in their life. Normally, I would be fine and in my empathic counseling mode, but I was not. up. for. it. that night. I apologized and luckily the next round was a little lighter. I'm glad I went for closure and hope to keep in touch with one or two of the women in the group. Through the course of our group meetings and discussions, I did realize that I am more God-focused, even more of a very progressive/liberal Christian, than the general culture of the UU church, so I will probably look for a Unity or other similar-type church wherever RC and I end up.
4. Now, comes the last of this series of endings: leaving Petaluma and moving out of my house here. Everything has been in disarray since RC was here a week or two ago and we completed a first round of moving stuff into the pod. He arrives again tomorrow for the final push. We will have the guy who helped us last time come again on Wednesday to get everything else out. Then, left with only a blow-up bed and a few necessities, we will sleep a last night in this place and drive down to Atascadero Thursday morning, with Zoey of course. Zoey will be in for a big adjustment time learning to live with RC's cat, Calvin. Luckily they've spent time together already, so we won't be starting from ground zero. I'm a little sad to leave Petaluma, as I really enjoyed living here, especially being in walking distance to downtown and all it's restaurants, shops, and community events - not to mention wine tasting which I did for a last hurrah yesterday late afternoon/early evening. As far as this too-small, funky little townhouse, situated in a too-loud, messy complex? No sadness at leaving that in the rearview mirror.

My last topic is related to beginnings not endings: we are thiiiis close to making a final decision on the three egg donor choices we need to provide to Cal IVF! It's been quite an interesting and fun process, not unlike my process of choosing a sperm donor way back when. We identified and honed the parameters most important to us and made a comparison table with all the relevant data. We had multiple conversations, both in-person last time he was here and over the phone in the last week, mulling over the pictures, genetics, health, and personality/essays of the several candidates in whom we were interested.

All of our current final three candidates, like me, are reflective and thoughtful, are focused on a career in psychology, have a passion for music, writing, and/or the arts, and are active and athletic. The looks side of things was interesting... I wanted women who shared my family traits in terms of hair and eye color as much as possible, and we wanted to feel warmth or "drawn to" their pictures. One of the candidates doesn't meet the warmth factor to the level we would prefer, especially for RC, but she was attractive and everything else is great, so overall she seems like a good choice.

We had one bump in the road when we were told our top choice was no longer available, as she had just been chosen for her final (6th!) donation. It's disappointing but out of our control, so I choose to believe the donor we end up with is the one we were meant to have.

Our next steps are to have the couple's psychological consultation week after next and then RC will go for his sperm extraction procedure in July. At that time, I will also likely undergo another saline sonogram, as unfortunately the one I had before was too long ago.

Please send good thoughts for my move and settling in to RC's  place for the summer. I'm praying it goes relatively smoothly!

Over the Hump

It's been almost a month since I posted! I've been pretty occupied with gearing up for this move. The Variety Show I organized for the students went pretty well. We didn't have a huge turnout for the show, but I considered it a success that most of them did actually perform something and have that success and added confidence going forward. My program Director also posted the show on FB so it got out to more folks and was positive for the program.

RC has been here for the past week supporting me to prepare for moving lots of my stuff into the pod yesterday.  We ended up hiring a guy from Craigslist to help us with labor, as there were a few things that he and couldn't have moved on our own. We are now on the other side, and I feel super relieved! My place has emptied out and now just has necessities to get through the next 10 or so days. RC is coming back in about a week, next Monday, for the final load-in, and then we head down the coast to his place. Crazy!

We have had some tension this week, because he had expectations of how the week would go with him being here - that it would mainly be about him physically moving stuff. But for me, and I tried to communicate this to him but not clearly enough, the initial task was providing moral support and provide energy/encouragement to get some challenging organizing/packing steps done. A big challenge was that I had to work last week, so he was at my house feeling frustrated during the day  because he felt he couldn't move forward on that much.

But to me, it was hugely helpful to do certain things, like: move the boxes out from under the stairs so I could sort through them and repack some of them; buy more boxes and packing stuff at the store; repack a storage bin that had collapsed and take apart the crib and desk, etc. I had a little energy left when I got home to do a few things, but then I needed to rest and recharge for the next day of work. I knew tasks were moving forward in the way they needed to though, whereas he couldn't see it as much because it wasn't his stuff.

Anyway, we ended up talking it through Friday evening and Saturday morning I got a bunch of stuff done for when the moving guy came at 11:30. We had a wonderful walk around the lake that we like to do and a nice dinner where he actually broached the topic of marriage (!), so the week is ending well. I'm going to go make him breakfast before he has to drive back. Feeling a lot of gratitude and excitement about future possibilities. I also had a phone interview with that university in Eugene this week - more on that later!