It’s been more of an ordeal than we expected to get Olivia set up in Pittsburgh. The application process for her new apartment (in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of the city) was exhaustive and exhausting, but Olivia finally got keys to the place over her lunch break (from her new design job with Weisshouse in the Shadyside neighborhood of the city). And then Marci and I drove the minivan full of her stuff around 4:30 PM so we could all get her moved in at the end of the work day.

The last leg of the transition went pretty smoothly. But Olivia and I had our own Don-Quixote-and-Sancho-Panza-vomiting-in-each-other’s-faces sort of moment yesterday, as we were loading items from her storage unit and into our vehicles. At one point, Olivia was having trouble closing the tailgate of her insight because of a dresser-top mirror, so I leaned in from the rear corner of the car to adjust the piece’s position (fearful that she might break the piece and/or the rear window of her car by trying to close the tailgate more forcefully) — but she didn’t notice my (admittedly unannounced) intervention, and she slammed the tailgate down on my head! I saw stars for a moment and staggered away to regain equilibrium. Olivia felt really bad, and she apologized — and I forgave her immediately — but I got a goose-egg bump, bruise, and scrape on my upper-right forehead to show for it all.

So we are quite literally — and figuratively — banged up from this transition. But it feels pretty good to have gotten to such a key moment in the process.

Olivia had a lot of emotions at this defining moment in her young life: happiness, sadness, gratitude, anxiety, excitement, fear… Lots of tears, lots of hugs. The whole experience was pretty different from when we moved Elliot to Pittsburgh 25 months ago. The weather was not as hot or humid. The move was not as complicated, with just a smaller amount of stuff to be carried a shorter distance with fewer stairs or tight corners. But it’s still a pretty big deal to deal with a new job, a new home, and a new city all within the space of a couple of weeks! I’m glad that we all got through it together, and that Olivia and Elliot get to be in the same city that’s still within driving distance of where we live.

Olivia’s new neighborhood seems lovely. There’s a notable Jewish influence in Squirrel Hill, with girls in uniforms from the Yeshiva School, men with long beards and yarmulkes, a Jewish bookstore, and such. But there are lots of people from lots of different backgrounds in the neighborhood, too. I think and pray and hope and expect that Olivia will be able to build a life for herself in Squirrel Hill and in Pittsburgh more generally.

After we were finished with all the moving, we walked a little less than half a mile to a Japanese restaurant called Mayasushi. It was good food with casual conversation, and it felt like we all got to take some deep breaths after a sustained stretch of stress and sucking for air. When we finished dinner and walked back to Olivia’s apartment, Marci read a liturgy from Every Moment Holy while we sipped some celebratory sparkling wine and prayed for our daughter in this new phase of her life.

Marci and I are still learning a lot about how to be good parents for young adults. It’s harder than we thought. Still, it’s an honor to witness and provide strategic support (when requested) for a lovely young woman like Olivia.