Nervous

Archer and I meet with the Dean at 2:30.  We ran into J, the faculty retention officer, while dropping the boys off*.  Archer asked her if she had any advice for us in light of the meeting.  She said, "It is all good.  Even for the long term, it is all good."  So we more or less know what the Dean is going to tell us, but still, I'm nervous.  Really nervous.  As in the meeting is in 5 hours and my stomach is in knots nervous.  As in I wasn't this nervous immediately preceding my interviews at MLA. As in I feel like I might vomit nervous.  Why am I so nervous?  Sometime in the middle of the night I realized that in spite of all the tension, in spite of all the loneliness, and in spite of all the uncertainty, CU Land has started to feel like home, maybe even more like home than Southwest College Town.  I mean, consider:

• Bear was born here.  
• We've lived in our house for almost 3 years.  Aside from our second apartment in Southwest College Town, this is the longest we've lived in a single home since we've been married.  And this is our home.  We own it and have made major changes to it.
• Wild Man has no memory of any other location--CU Land in general and our house in particular means home for him.
• Wild Man started school here.

I used to think that leaving here wouldn't be that hard, but now I realize that leaving here would be very, very hard. 

*On a side note, Wild Man loves J.  Every time he sees her he tells J's daughter, "Your mommy is so pretty."  And then he gives J a really long hug.