Change

This morning I got to work and got packing. We are leaving our current office space and moving to a new space, and this means for me moving from an office I have sat in for five long years. A great office, with a thick noise-proof door, with a wall to wall window that actually opened (a rarity in this establishment). And we are moving to a new place where I also have an office to myself and a door and a great big window -- albeit one that doesn't open, alas -- so I have it good, I admit.

And then after packing box after box after box -- I helped pack up the rest of the office as well -- I went to my child's daycare for his very last day, to sit on the tiny chairs and eat cake and somehow find the words to say to the daycare providers -- thank you for taking care of the most precious thing in my life so very well. Rest assured that what I said was inadequate, because short of "I will give you my first born, I am so grateful" there was nothing I could have said to express it. And really that would have been counterproductive.

But you know? I hate change. Or rather, I hate change that isn't entirely under my control. I've changed my own life pretty radically before, but because *I* make the decision and *I* make the change, it's easy. Changes that other people instigate that I have to cope with are harder. 

Now I didn't weep while leaving my office nor when we finally left the daycare -- but it was a close thing after they gave me his goodbye present and when I finally walked out the door and the teachers all gave us hugs. But I still greet the evening feeling melancholy. 

We start afresh on Monday, but this weekend, the inbetween inbetwixt interim change time, this weekend I know I will sit and think and be just a little bit sad that things are changing. The old office was a place where I cried post-divorce, where I sat through my funk for months and felt safe doing so. It was a place later that I cried with happiness when pregnant, that I was happy to come back to post-maternity leave and turn on the old familiar radio and sit at the familiar desk and look out the same window and do the same work. It was comfortable, it was easy, it was good to work in a place that felt that relaxing.

The old daycare was the childcare place I finally felt really and truly happy with, that really and truly worked for us. His first place was a disaster; the second was very nice but really inconvenient in a number of ways. This daycare was close by and convenient but most of all it was good. It was SO good, and I saw there my son's potential unfurl and him transform from a shy, retiring kid too afraid to talk to a leader amongst his (admittedly tiny) peers, a confident child who talked and played and participated. And I loved going there each and every day, knowing that when I left him, since I had to, he was happy and cared for and loved every minute.

Monday I will leave my son at his new daycare for the first time (but only for an hour to start), and I will go into my new office and start unpacking boxes. It will be a whole new thing, and I know I will love it. The new daycare is with great kids and great caregivers and he is SO ready to be with older kids. My new office has new (non scuzzy) carpet and a new desk and no asbestos in the walls (yay!) and a new kitchen nearby instead of in an entirely new wing and we'll finally all be together and it will be good. I know that he will be as comfortable in his new space as I will be in mine. Eventually.

But just for now, I will let myself feel just a little bit sad.