New Mattresses and a run

We set the wake up call for 7:30am. We stumbled out of bed at 7:25am. It definitely felt like my body was still on Maryland time which would have been 2:25am. The kids seemed to feel the same way, but the prospect of their first day of school motivated them to get up. We were supposed to be at school at 8:45am so that the headmistress could show the kids to their classrooms. Time seemed be running extra fast that morning. We ate breakfast as quickly as we could and left the hotel at 8:30am. The school is only 5 miles from the hotel, but the roundabouts and single lane town entries make travel anywhere much slower. We had never timed our trips to Hardwick from Bar Hill, so did not anticipate how long it would take to get there. We arrived at the school at 8:50am. I dashed in with the kids explaining to the headmistress that I had their lunches and school forms at our house in Hardwick and that I would bring them over after dropping off the kids. I gave Alyssa and Nathan each a quick hug and a kiss and my heart felt heavy as I turned them quickly over to the headmistress for their first day of school. I felt like I was abandoning them in this foreign place to fend for themselves. They reassured me with a cheerful goodbye and they turned to follow the headmistress. I watched them disappear through the door. I wanted so badly to go with them to reassure them that everything was OK, but I knew that reassurance was more for me than for them. Watching them go through that door made me suddenly realize that this whole trip was for real. It was not some strange dream that kept going. We were in England with our everyday life and this was not a vacation to return home from. I wandered over the bulletin board next to the front door. Posted on it were notices about community activities, kids’ activities for the term break coming up the following week, pilates classes being held in the community hall (a room off the front lobby of the school), and “child minder” services. I wandered back to the house making the three minute walk last 5 minutes and hoped the kids were doing OK. I spend the rest of the day staring at the thermostat in our hallway. This is the only place in the house I could find a clock. The minutes seemed to creep by. I passed the time by unpacking suitcases, putting away a pile of kids books left for us by our landlords, and looking through kitchen cabinets trying to figure out what we could use for cooking. I did not want to go back to the hotel that night. I wanted to stop living out of suitcases. We were going on week two for our suitcases since we started the day our stuff got packed up. I think that some little angel was listening because I then heard a truck pull up and it was our mattresses.

The mattresses smelled like glue when I pulled them out of the plastic. The delivery man had just leaned them against the bedroom wall wrapped in plastic. I had to use my keys to cut the plastic since I had no other tools at my disposal. I imagined the lawsuit that would have resulted if the same thing happened in the states. I put both single mattresses in Alyssa’s room to be so that the kids could sleep in the same room the first few nights. I opened one of the glass doors in here room that served as her window. They opened to a railing that looked over that back patio. The cobwebs were thick above the window, but the air smelled good and the smell of glue faded. I continued pulling plastic off mattresses and opening windows until 2:30pm. At this point, I could not stand doing any more house stuff. I put on my running shoes and decided to go for a run. I was desperate. A week of no exercise was making me anxious and crabby. I was starting to hate my new life and I was afraid to eat. My thoughts were piling up on each other and rational thoughts were losing ground fast. I knew running would hurt since I had not run since high school, but it was my only option. It turned out to be more of a hard walk. My legs were not pleased and immediately let me know that I had promised them no more running 15 years ago.