I was optimistic. I thought it was possible to do both. How could I not pack the car, drive, unpack the car, repeat? In the small gaps of time between, I could write. After all, I am getting used to being Between.
Between countries, between houses, between times. That is what 2020 had been to our family. The Between Times. I had big plans with an ambitious timetable. We moved out of the Netherlands in December of 2019 and moved to our temporary accommodations in the USA in the same month (Home 1). We brought in the New Year in a whole new place a celebrated our latest adventure. This would be the eighth move between countries. But then COVID struck.
I am not a negative person, but it hit all of us around the world hard in different ways. In our case, the borders between Canada, our passport country, and the USA while we were in Canada visiting family. We had just (And I mean I had less than a week) unpacked our new house in Houston (Home 2). All of the main level furniture was in the living room because my husband was in Argentina while I was unpacking, and I have learned my lesson about moving heavy furniture alone. Well, I have learned not to try and go up and downstairs with furniture without help. So we decided to stay in Canada while the border was closed for a month and the world adapted to isolation and lockdown. We relocated to my grandparents’ homestead as no one was using it at the time (Home 3). It was the first time my daughter lived on a farm. The perfect time to see what it was like to live with no close neighbours. But then my husband was told to return to work, so he crossed the border and left us up north.
Once our daughter finished school, I left her with my mom. It was our original plan for our daughter to spend the summer with our family while I focused on my writing and we settled our new home (Home 3). Instead, our daughter stayed with family while we finished moving into the house and packing the car. We decided it was in our best interest to move our daughter and myself to Canada since I could no longer work in the USA. No new work visas meant I was out of luck. So I drove up north, collected our daughter, and moved in with our friends (Home 4).
We would stay with our friends while I signed up our daughter for the local school and waited for our house to be available. I am so fortunate to have good friends who were willing to double their home occupancy while we waited for our home. We kept our Canadian house and other people were living in it. This was in August. Finally, in November, we have our house back (Home 5).
So now, once again, we clean. We clean because…. COVID. It is best to make sure the house is empty and disinfected. More so then I have done between our other world moves. And this makes me tired. So tired. And that is why I am now behind on my writing and my blog posts. I apologize for not posting the Inspiring Author of the Week post Tuesday with Faith Hunter. I simply have been too focused on cleaning our newest home. But now the beds are made, the kitchen stocked, so tomorrow I will catch up. I promise.
