Things kind of settled down for awhile. I got engaged, I got a new job in a new career field, and I moved to a new town. Then, for a few months, things sort of settled into a new pattern. Jennifer and I lived together, I’d drive the hour to work and back each day (or fly up to Portland), every weekend we’d drive out to the site of our new house and take pictures to put up on the website. But on the whole, things were pretty stable.

But now, once again, things are starting to get exciting. It’s like the second of two windstorms; or, better, yet, the period of calm routine was more like the eye of the hurricane. The house will be finished and ready for us to move into in two weeks; in just about a month I’m flying to Europe; and in less than four months we’re going to be married.

It’s kind of like being at your desk at work and watching the clock, waiting for 5:00 to roll around so that you can go home and settle in for some serious television-watching or gaming.

Except that now I’m watching a calendar, not a clock. And instead of the boring meeting that lies between me and going home, is the move the lies between me and my trip and the wedding. While I’m really looking forward to being in the new house, I’m not at all looking forward to the actual move itself; I’ve always hated moving, and I doubt that I will ever be the kind of person who will ever like the process of putting stuff in boxes, lugging them around, and then taking the stuff out of the boxes again. But maybe that’s just me.

When I worked at the University, I had a five minute commute from home to work and back again — on a rough traffic day, my commute might have lasted fifteen minutes. Often, I simply walked to work; that way, if I left early enough, I could stop at a downtown café and get a cup of coffee or tea and read over a book or a newspaper before walking the rest of the way to work. I think that is one of the things I miss most about working at the University; that and the learning and training opportunities I gave up for a bigger paycheck and a cooler-sounding title.

So the countdown continues. E-minus 30 days and counting. Less than two weeks until we move. Less than four months until the wedding. All of this is still overwhelming but I can’t help but be excited. I still feel woefully unprepared for my trip to Europe — I need to finalize my route, I need to make sure my equipment is up to snuff, I need to… you know how it goes) but I know I’ll be just fine and that I’ll have the time of my life.

When I worked as a secretary at the University, I would watch the clock and wonder what I would do after five o’ clock in the evening. Now I watch the calendar, and wonder what I will do with myself after the wedding, when all of our major planning projects — wedding, house, trip, move — will be over. I’ve been fantasizing already — I’ll have more time to write, to game, to simply sit down and watch the old horror movies that I love. But life has a funny way of continuing to throw new curve balls at you, and, somehow, I think that we’re never going to run out of ways to keep ourselves insanely busy.