I haven’t talked too much about the actual move; like, the process behind it. I haven’t because, honestly, I was busy pretending it wasn’t happening. I didn’t want to leave Canada, I wasn’t planning on leaving Canada. I was happy in Canada. I was getting things in order to apply for citizenship in Canada. And now, I’m as far from Canada as I think I could be, geographically.

We say, or at least think, that the internet bridges all spans of time and distance, but it isn’t really true. Right now, the internet is making what is a massive span of miles seem unfathomably far away. Right now, I feel two thousand light years away.

When I moved to Canada from Denver, I let myself die, repeatedly, inside. Every goodbye sucked a little bit of life out of me. I caved in on myself for a while and felt it. I didn’t let myself meet new people for a long time. I didn’t see new faces, I didn’t hear new stories, I didn’t hold new babies. I suspended myself in some weird loss-ridden vortex for a long time and ached for home.

Of course, Canada ended up being just as much home in 3 years as Denver had become in 15.

And now I’m back in that vortex. I’m in a neighborhood that doesn’t have a Lauren outside chasing kids and a Sajeeda outside drinking tea and a Meera outside holding someone’s kid and a Luke outside tweeting fabulously obscene 140 character sentences and an Andrew outside fixing everyone’s bike and feeding the kids mint and a Brent washing his car and a Shawn and an Austin and a Dez watching really inappropriately frightening movies in my living room. I haven’t seen so much as ONE neighbor yet, and I quite frankly don’t want to.

I don’t want to love these people. I don’t want to have a favorite Texan, and I don’t want her to fly halfway across the state to come stay for a weekend with me before I get kicked out of this place like my Canadian bella did. I don’t want to have hundreds of pictures of their kids who will forever be suspended in the animation of FlickR, I don’t want to hold on to four pasta bowls that don’t match a god damn thing in my kitchen because someone used to make me Indian food in them. I don’t want to have a size 5 hand-me-down toddler track suit in a ziploc baggy because it’s the last thing that smells like a Texan’s house.

I don’t want anymore new. And so I’ve been ignoring this, this upheaval. I’ve drown myself in the Tasks At Hand that involve writing corporate web copy, unpacking boxes, washing laundry for 6 days, non-stop, and figuring out where to hang this damn Auspicious Animal. I’ve swooned in the space I am afforded in This Texas Life, because it’s true; everything is bigger here. And so much fucking cheaper, I can’t even believe it.

That big red home? 1/3 of the price of the Canadian blue home that was half the size. Not kidding.

I’ve been doing a great job of this. I haven’t set up my office, on purpose, because setting up my office means turning on the Mac and that means 24″ of everyone in Canada’s life moving right on without me. It’s 24 HD inches of faces I’m not going to see, of people across borders I won’t see again for I-don’t-know-how-long. It’s reality, and reality is for pussies.

And then the first runny nose set in. And then I noticed the first flaw in the new house. And then I lost my momentum and let the dishes pile up. And then, this morning, I opened the packet for my health care policy enrollment forms.

And then it all hit me Square. In. The. Face.

I left. I left all of those things that I loved behind. AGAIN. I know what happens when you do that; I did it before, and I lost so much. And I’m tired of losing. I’m tired of giving up these relationships that form me and mold me and make me and my family better and stronger and safer and happier.

But here I am, thousands of miles from what I love in several different directions, with happy children and a professionally fulfilled spouse and a gorgeous kitchen and I think, if I’m going to live here, I’m going to have to let myself die a little first.

Or Midol. Maybe I just need to take some damn Midol.