To recap: for a long while, we thought we were moving far, far away. We still know we’re moving, not far, far away, but away, yet we still don’t know when. The very idea of our relocation has now morphed into a running joke among friends. It’s nice though, it makes the uncertainty a bit easier to handle.

Last night, since my husband was on his annual camping trip up north with his college friends, I took the kids out to their favorite restaurant for dinner. We ran into a family, who, when we last saw each other (at our home, during a pool-time playdate), were under the impression that we were moving within months.

For me at the time, that was not only a true impression, but a convenient one. The son in this family had punched our son in the stomach, which ended up knocking our son over on some steps in our pool. The parents didn’t respond in a manner that I saw as sufficient.*

That was almost two years ago. And then we saw them last night. Oops.

“We thought you moved…. We figured for sure you’d be long gone by now… ”

“I know, crazy, huh? Latest news is that maybe it’ll be in the first half of 2014….” I said that and proceeded to sit down to dinner with my kids, and ignore that family.

But there they were, watching me with our children, perhaps wondering whether we’d all get together again for another playdate now that we’re still in town… or perhaps thinking, “that woman just didn’t want to hang out with us.”  Really, sincerely, hoping it was the latter.

—

This week, three different people have asked me the “Any word on your move” question, to which I respond, “Nope, no word,” and then they say, “It must be so hard,” and then I say, “Yeah, it’s frustrating.”

But something just occurred to me. It’s not frustrating. It’s actually rather liberating.

* Sufficient = “I am so very sorry. [Son,] apologize to your friend. It is wrong to hit. We do not hit.” Nothing like that happened. In fact, the mother wrote off the incident as a side effect of her son needing a bowel movement. I wish I were kidding.