The past month has felt like a purgatory, with Sam now four weeks into his new job in Modesto and me back at the house, forever packing. If it weren’t for the occasional lunch out–and that Michael has come up twice, and Terri has spent a few days here, too–the days flow one into another, like during the pandemic.

Out in Modesto, Sam has good support at work and at home. He’s staying in AirBnB on the north side of the city. He can wash his clothes on the weekend, keep food in a small pantry and fridge, and charge his car at a fast-charge station nearby. We zoom chat just about every evening. There is always some document to sign as we move toward closing on a townhome in the next few days. But we play games and share a joke of the day, too.

This transition had a lot of moving and dependent parts, and not all of them came together. During my last night in Modesto, before leaving Sam to come back to Texas, I felt myself right on the edge. There was going to be no renting a house while leisurely looking for something to buy later. I’d watched the rental market for months, but it was not at all what it appeared. For a good 24-hour period, I put down wave after wave of panic attacks, something I had never experienced before. We were going to have to buy a place. And we’d have to buy fast.

The feeling was rather like the performance anxiety from my music days, but bigger. Much bigger. Hard to see. Hard to regulate breath and heartbeat. Hard to eat food.

That first week or so, as we were pivoting to this new plan, I was able to keep my mental health in check, but it wasn’t easy. Good self-care means more than keeping the yoga and exercise routine. It also means reaching out to friends and family.  I’m grateful that they responded with real strategies that helped solve problems, and with just general love and care.

I also have to detach from the busy chatter inside of my head. Once outside my head, I’m better able to closely observe physical feelings and to gather information, usually by reading. Anxiety often follows over-estimating a perceived threat while underestimating your ability to deal with it.

I confess, our life here in Denton had a nice routine that bordered on a rut. I let my critical thinking atrophy. I thought I was challenging myself, but not in ways that made me truly uncomfortable.

Sam, on the other hand, was absolutely blossoming out in Modesto. This decision was his. He enjoyed terrific support from his employer in exercising renewed control over his career. He went out with the real estate agent to pick the townhome we’re buying. He is building a new life that he likes and has a lot of agency over. For a brief period, I flirted with the idea of simply letting him fly on his own. Isn’t that what we want for all our kids?

For many reasons, financial and otherwise, I knew that wasn’t in the cards for us. But I thought we should at least talk about all the changes. As usual, I went for metaphor and allegory.

What did he think? Was all of this change maybe like coming out of a cocoon and becoming a butterfly?

“Metamorphosis is for insects, Mom,” he said.