We say this to ourselves, don’t we? How much we are looking forward to settling in—to a new home, city, environment. How we hope it for others when they transition. It seems many of us are inclined to gravitate toward a settled state.

From this…

When I moved to Santiago three years ago, I sold most everything and got on a plane with my duffle bags. In contrast, the re-entry has taken on epic proportions. We found out we were officially relocating in January, the week after H. was born. Movers picked up our boxes at the end of March. We arrived here in early April and lived in temporary housing for one month before moving into a one-year rental. Furniture arrives piecemeal as we acquire it, and the rest of our things from Chile won’t be here until next month (they are being shipped, literally, across the sea). We will very likely have to move again before our time here draws to a close, whenever that may be. (Just as we never really knew how long we would be in Chile.)

This is what we signed up for; Ryan’s job is tied to our flexibility. This kind of lifestyle isn’t “traditional,” and there can be excitement in that. Our exposure to culture and language and changes in the weather shift as we do. We can only plan so far ahead. As Ryan puts it, we are always living in the present.

There are trade-offs, of course. We rent and lease, buy what we can carry, and keep boxes on hand because we’ll be packing up again before too long. I’m trying not to count the days until we do, but to simply inhabit them. I don’t always succeed in that.

… to this.

Right now we are setting up shop, and while it’s a tad stressful to do so from scratch, this is technically the fun part. This is when Ryan and I get to select the objects we’ll live upon, that we’ll continue to cart around from country to country, that H. will remember from her childhood (as I remember the rectangular, lacquered coffee table I drew under as a child). We’ll remember these days, of feeding our baby on the floor, of Ruby’s inquisitive looks, of reminders that so much is temporary. Even the moments we want to rush past will appear, perhaps, all too fleeting in retrospect.

Ryan and I look at one another and marvel at how normal it can all feel—as we pick out a sofa, as we decide where the dog food should be kept. Until, surprisingly (though I should know better than not to expect surprises on this journey), I’ll realize that it’s not about the dog food. It’s about how much I suddenly need to talk about Lorenzo. It’s Mother’s Day again. Or, in this case, Mother’s Night. H. is asleep after a day of snuggles. Thank God for those snuggles. But Lorenzo isn’t here. And Ryan and I have been so busy “settling in,” both to active parenthood and a new part of the U.S., that I need to make sure he is still right there with us—in a place where physically he never was. I want to make sure we haven’t regressed into the old, run-of-the-mill stress I thought the grief made us immune to. There was a time, not so long ago, we wouldn’t have cared at all about objects to acquire, let alone where the dog food went.

It’s strength, Ryan reminds, not regression. We are stronger now for bearing the weight and resurfacing, and that is why things can sometimes feel so normal, here, settling in on the top of things.