Recalling and Building Intensity

I've moved around a bit. It all started when I was an infant. We moved to Washington State when I was a baby so that my dad could attend Gonzaga Law School. I don't remember that move because I was so young, but earliest memories start to take shape there. I do remember leaving and a few subsequent visits that followed.

We came back to New Jersey shortly before kindergarten began. Relatives who remembered me and not necessarily vice versa welcomed us back, acted like people who knew me in a past life. I think that might be where my fascination with reincarnation began. Surely I had seen this kind people before, but where? when? Answer: my infancy.


Through various apartments in Central Jersey to our first house in Kendall Park to our last house in Alexandria Township to now, I have had a lot of practice with breaking my life down to it's basic elements, sorting, filing through, discarding, and neatly fitting it all together. I know that books are heavy and they go in small boxes and that you can use your socks to fill in the gaps in between your fragile items. I know how to configure my personal items together like a jigsaw puzzle. I know that it's a really good idea to be liberal with the packing tape and to reinforce the box on the bottom before even loading it up.

After leaving the family home in Alexandria I wandered over to Phillipsburg and back to Alexandria on several occasions. The last residence I had in P'burg was not half bad actually, one of my better apartments. My boyfriend at the time and I had the top 2 floors of a 3 story home with 3 entire bedrooms, 2 whole baths, a cute kitchen, a balcony overlooking our quiet street, an extra loft-type room, lots of closets, and full use of the basement for laundry and hanging clothes. Oh yeah, plus a garage. And the yard was good.

But even all of that space, for $750/month, no less, couldn't save the situation.

I returned home for the last time. We kind of made it work. I enjoyed cooking dinners for my family and being in a very comfortable house with all the trimmings but try living with your parents after years of carrying on your own stupid life and all of your stupid habits and ways and see how well that all fits together. I dare anyone to try it for one day. You'll look for any reason to occupy yourself outside of the house. Anything.

Shortly before 9/11 I met my husband online and then in person. March of 2003 we were engaged. Sadie and I joined him in Lodi in May of that year. We married in August 2003 and spent the next year in that house as I finished nursing school

We moved to this house in Wood-Ridge in September of 2004 and here we are, a baby, a major surgery, and many bouts of laughter and tears later. We have had 2 tenants under our roof. We have hosted many holidays. I have cooked several turkeys, a prime rib, an infinite number of mashed potatoes, and several birthday cakes. Hundreds of presents have been opened under the Christmas tree that magically appears in the corner after my husband wakes up from a nap, a fake tree that I have lugged up and down 2 flights of stairs, even when I was ready to pop with pregnancy. But in his defense his heart was so bad he could barely maintain a healthy pink color, much less lug around a Christmas tree. And I needed the exercise badly.

So very shortly we are going to be leaving New Jersey for good. I can't imagine ever returning. I have spent most of my life here and I feel like I have absolutely made the most of it. I have loved this state like you wouldn't believe, and there have even been times when I thought that I couldn't possibly live anywhere else.

Most of that feeling came from living so close to the Delaware River for so many years. I have loved that river for a long time. I have fished it, swam it, tubed it, thrown countless roaches into it, contemplated it, fallen in love in it, water skied it, driven along it and over its bridges, skipped rocks into it, dipped Sadie's feet in it when she was just a little tiny baby. I will miss it. I hope I can visit it one more time before we go.