As the planning for this move was happening, I kept saying to others, as a way to reinforce it to myself – “I mean, there’s no way that on the day of our flight, our cars will be gone, our house will be closed, and everything will be perfectly wrapped up before we go.” And partly, that’s true. But we worked our tails off to get as close as possible.
The house was sold – on to someone who we hope loves that little house as much as we did (and loves our neighbors and community as much as us too.) The house was empty, wiped down, swept, keys placed on our built-in shelves, as ready as we could get it. The van had sold, to the man with the lovely family who had painted rooms for us as we prepped to sell. Tim’s car still isn’t sold, but is in the great hands of my brother and dad who will no doubt sell it and get it in better shape and get a better price than we likely could have.
We moved into a hotel in the final days before leaving. The boys loved the pool and basketball court and I liked feeling that we had somewhere to retreat as the house got emptier (and sadder). There was a sense of longing to go back to our regular life, but also a feeling of wanting to finally do what we’ve been talking about for so long. Get the show on the road, as they say.
We said final goodbyes to friends, and in the hotel, I stared at the half bottle of Quintessa that we’d been saving since our Napa trip in 2007. We couldn’t afford a whole bottle at the time and kept swearing we’d open it sometime special. Many of the nicer bottles we’d been saving I had been happy to open with friends in the past few weeks, and this was all that was left. With a hotel corkscrew and plastic cups, we sat in the lobby and waited for the car to take us to the airport. And opened the wine.
Except the cork broke, and it took about five failed attempts before just scraping some cork out and pushing the rest in. Not a sign at all right?
We toasted to the next adventure, climbed in the awaiting car, and said goodbye and started the drive to the Chicago airport. The boys slept. I wiped tears from my eyes. We sipped the wine. Probably not the way that Quintessa should have gone down… but it was a reminder to me to drink the special wine. With your spouse, your friends, your neighbors, your family. Don’t let the cork dry out and the moment almost pass.
The airport was about 8000x better than we expected. I think Tim and I both went in, tensed up and expecting the worst. We were on heightened alert and prepared for hours of waiting and shuffling and scolding. But then – check-in and checking baggage went OK. They were friendly. One bag was slightly overweight but she waved it on through. We held our breath. Then she said that we had priority check-in, so proceed to Security Line 8. Turns out Security Line 8 is the place that dreams come true. I am not sure if it’s because Tim’s work booked the tickets, or because he has some silver/gold/platinum/cherub/whatever status with them, but we probably waited 10 minutes and all proceeded through, no pat-down in sight.
We ate dinner at a fine mall-grade Italian restaurant and ordered so much that we were those people who carried their leftovers on the plane with them. I think my flatbread may have even had gorgonzola on it, and for that I am sorry, fellow passengers. SHAME.
The plane was not full – enough so that Nate moved over into the center rows by Tim and I sat by Bennett. Bennett was living his best life on that plane. First, he got pretzels just tossed his way. This was awesome to him. Then they came around and offered him juice. Then he got a pasta dinner, even though we had just ate at the airport. Then he watched a movie, played some video games, and slept. By the time he woke, it was time to eat a muffin and had more juice. I will never forget the look of joy on his face when he said, “They’re feeding us AGAIN?!”
Nate fell asleep on a sleeping Tim, cuddled cozily in the blankets on the empty plane seats, as Bennett rested peacefully on me. For the first 30 minutes, I looked at them with adoring love. And then for the rest of the six hours or so I glared at them, and all of the surrounding sleeping passengers, with fury and envy as I rubbed my eyes, fitfully shifted around and looked for another crappy movie to watch. Someday I will sleep on a plane but this was not that day.
We landed on Wednesday morning, waited in a long line at customs, explained to the agent how we were there to live now, and were fingerprinted and micro-chipped promptly. (Pretty sure I just made that last part up, but we’ll see.) Picked up our luggage and walked toward a driver holding a sign that read, “Dolan.” We had arrived in the U.K.
Tosa to Tarporley 