Whiplash

Clearly the new normal thing is going to take time to get used to.

Co-existing over Catherine’s winter break was like trying to do a dance we didn’t know the steps to. No one was able to teach us either.

Now that she’s not quite a grownup, but no longer a kid, it all seems a little off-balance, even without considering the matters of three of us sharing two cars, that we don’t stock a school cafeteria’s worth of meal choices, and navigating new habits (sleep til noon, anyone?).

Yesterday, five weeks after she arrived on our doorstep for Christmas, we were driving her and a carload of stuff back to Hofstra.

The kid does not travel light. This wasn’t everything we crammed into the car yesterday morning.

We helped her unpack some of it.

Put clean sheets on the bed.

Picked up her books at the bookstore.

Bought her lunch.

Convinced her to send us home with some things that weren’t being used.

And while we kept looking for reasons to hang around another minute or two, she clearly couldn’t wait for us to leave.

Back home, things are far less cluttered, but a bit quieter than I remember them being pre-holiday.

Well, unless you count the coming snowpocalypse.