Between 2014 and 2018, every single spring brought our household a health crisis. Not simple ones, either — pulmonary emboli, mental health breakdowns, cellulitis. Every single one took months to get through, and even when things were back to “well,” there was all that ground that had been lost emotionally as well as physically. And just as we were starting to get our feet under us again, another one hit.

It got so I dreaded spring, a season I otherwise love with all my heart. I would just start feeling energy return after I spent months recovering from the caretaking I’d done, and another one would hit. It felt like there was no point in making plans, trying to do things, because they would inevitably get derailed by the latest crisis.

But early last summer, amid the chronic, idiopathic, full-body hives that were 2018’s contribution to the fun, Catharine was put on a new psych med to balance out the steroids she was taking for the hives. Within the space of two days, she suddenly felt better than she’d maybe ever felt in her life. And it wasn’t hypomania, either — it was solid, and grounded, and stable. It also just kept on keeping on.

The rest of the year was unlike any we’d had, because, by and large, nothing went wrong. Oh, we had bad days and we got mad at each other as we continued to work on untangling our respective patterns, but the absence of mood episodes will do wonders for your state of mind, even if you aren’t the one with the mood disorder.

Which is why, when Catharine brought up wanting to move out of the house we were renting because it was full of stairs and her knees are terrible, I suggested we think about buying instead.

Full disclosure: I really don’t think I would have agreed to move, much less buy a place, if she hadn’t gotten this stable. Moving and spending shit-tons of money are inherently destabilizing things, and prior to the new med, we had enough destabilization already, thanks so much. But she was stable, and we did want to live somewhere quieter, so we bit the bullet, pulled our paperwork in order, and bought a house.

It’s a lovely house. It makes us happy every day. It has 15-18 rose bushes (depending on how you count). She lives entirely on the main floor — no stairs! — and I have my office and bedroom downstairs, so we can both work from home and not want to strangle one another. It simultaneously feels secluded and has easy access to all the things that matter to us. (Doctors, delivery, Target, Trader Joe’s. We aren’t proud.)

Even though this was a horribly stressful season, it wasn’t a crisis. Even when we were short with one another, or couldn’t find something because we hadn’t gotten that far in the unpacking, or ordered delivery again because I was too worn out to cook, it was just the stress of moving. Nothing compounded it, which was always our problem before — one stressful thing would begin the slow slide of the avalanche.

I am so grateful we found the perfect house for us and moved, and I honestly hope never to move again. Okay, more realistically, I hope to be here at least a decade, preferably two or three. I feel much more settled here (I even recycled all my moving boxes, which is how you know my military brat self feels settled), and that in turn is making it easier for me to return to the things I love — my books, my shows, my crafts, my writing.

I hope in turn I’m here more often, because writing regularly — whether it’s blog posts or bits of the essay about the summer I spent driving around the country or notes for the romance novel I’m working on — is important and something I’m trying to return to.

Gently, though. I still have all my chronic illness stuff, and I still have to pace myself and pay attention to the way my energy disappears after a difficult day at work. But there’s more space now, for all of that, and I am grateful.