On Removing Band-Aids

I've never understood the expression, "Rip it off like a Band-Aid."

Well, that's not really true. I understand the theory behind it. Supposedly it hurts your skin less if you just grab one side of that thing and yank hard and fast.

But that's not how I roll. I have never. ever. ripped off Band-Aids.

My process for removing a Band-Aid involves thinking about it for awhile. Deciding if the grayish-black adhesive that always builds up around the edge is now so disgusting that people are going to start looking at me funny. When I decide it is indeed time, I wedge my fingernail underneath the edge of it and S-L-O-W-L-Y pull. And by slowly, I mean that this process can take ten minutes or more for a normal-sized bandage. Ten minutes of pain...followed by relief...followed by pain...followed by relief...wash. rinse. repeat.


Yep. Same thing with pools and the like. I always get in inch by tiny inch. One toe at a time. It's one of the many reasons I never attempted swim team. I was never gonna be able to dive off of those blocks into the water. I just can't do it. Drives my kids crazy. By the time I'm completely wet, they're long done and ready to do something else.

I approach all difficult things in my life this way.

People think I'm crazy. They're not wrong.

So it's a little bit understandable that I would approach a life-changing move the selfsame way.

~Find out about it in November.

~Feel the need to let kids finish the school year. Buys time until May.

~Decide the kids need one last summer with their friends to finish baseball. Buys time until July.

~Take advantage of brother getting married and not having people in a new place to watch kids. Buy some more time until the end of August.

~Leave all of our stuff in our house in the Midwest until we can close on a house in our new place. Buys a flight back to the home I love for one more visit.

And just like pulling off a Band-Aid, all of these stages have had great pain, followed by relief and ease, joy and laughter, followed by pain and tears and breaking hearts.

So as I sit here in this airport, ready to board a flight that will take me the last leg of this very long moving journey, I realize that I have finally done it. I no longer have any type of residence in Kansas. Our belongings are on a huge truck, en route to a new, permanent home. The band-aid is off. I'm completely immersed in the water, from toe to head.

The emotional exhaustion is huge.

So huge that I feel numb.

And I am sure that my friends and family were looking on during this whole process and thinking, "Oh, For.The.Love!! Just do it already!! Move! Like ripping off a Band-Aid."

Exactly. Just like ripping off a Band-Aid.