Home has a funny way of calling you back.
This year marks ten years of marriage to my high school sweetheart, Ethan. That's a pretty awesome feat to say you've got a decade of official marital commitment at just thirty-two years old.
In January, I told him, "I want to do something BIG this year!"
Notice how I said "told" and not "asked"? We were going to do something big this year. It was not an option; an utter, complete non-negotiable. After moving four times, multiple career changes between the two of us, and having two children all within the span of ten years, it was time for a reward that was more special than a little sweet treat from the local coffee shop.
Without hesitation -- honestly, without waiting for his response -- I self-sparked my research fuse. My mind sprinted marathons through all the possibilities to celebrate this marriage mile-marker. Romania to see the largest Orthodox Church? France for a pain au chocolat under a twinkling Eiffel Tower? Austria to frolic through the hills that are alive with the sound of music?
The world was our Nestle Magic Ball (only because I don't like oysters).
So imagine my surprise when he approached me on an oddly-warm-for-NC-in-early-March afternoon while I was on our hammock nose-deep in a book with the following words:
"I think we should move."
........
My flabbers were ghasted. Move? My brain was in the middle of planning a spring vacation in Turkey and now we're talking about moving? What about the entire plans and scenarios I had created in my head but never verbalized and now wondering if all that is out the window? And it's strangely tepid weather for a late winter's day?
This is what I get for jumping the gun.
We had 14 untouched acres in the back of an Appalachian holler surrounded by mountain sides. We had cows, pigs, and chickens. My kids were literally free-ranged, definitely borderline feral. We were 45 minutes from Asheville and 18 minutes from our little mountain town's square. We had the ultimate homesteading, homeschooling, sourdough proofing, livestock raising, homegrown-from-the-gardening, country living dream. Why in the world would we leave all of that? This is what so many people are trying to achieve, and we're just going to leave all our hard work behind? We'll just start over? It wasn't too farfetched of a notion, but it seemed more work than it was worth (at the time).
We tabled that topic for a few days.
Then that same week, as if by premonition, my sister-in-law coincidentally texted both Ethan and me asking if we could just go ahead and move back to Tallahassee so we could raise our kids together. It was sent as a half-joke, a minor plea, without an inkling of the conversation we had a few days prior. But we received it as a serious, valid, feasible option. Could we do this? Do we want this?
And the more we sat there marinating in this very concept... the more it actually did make sense.
We've lived away from family for ten long years, eight of those years were residing in states away. We had children with zero help and minimal village. Yes, we had close friends in NC, but the fact we had helpful family so eager to be involved in our babies' lives yet were hundreds of miles apart broke my heart year after year. Snippets of life shared over FaceTime and text can only do so much to quell the craving of being close to the ones you love during milestone moments.
You get to a point where you throw in the towel and finally admit: life may be comfortable, but is it happy?
My fantasies of laying poolside beside an Italian villa in the summertime were slowly clouded with visions of my parents attending my daughter's recitals, my in-laws coming over for dinner, my niece running alongside my children in my sister-in-law's front yard, our family being able to attend parties of celebration without having the sorry excuse of being too far away to make the roundtrip worthwhile.
So, we took the chance and ran with it.
We went through a period of feeling the weight of total madness from our decision. We shocked our friends in NC. Our family in FL was filled to the brim with delight. I notified former clients in both NC and FL to let them know about our impending move. Yet, my most favorite part about sharing the news with everyone was how much they understood our decision.
You see, we were often the odd ones out amongst the people we knew in NC because we were most often the only ones who didn't have loved ones nearby. We couldn't relate to grandma picking up the kids from practice, going to our brother's house to watch the game, the nieces/nephews coming over for a sleepover, even catching the occasional date night utilizing free childcare. They understood the importance to one's psyche of having those connections in close proximity and were glad we were going home to finally have that for ourselves. Bittersweet, but reasonable.
In May, we listed our property. In July, we sold that property. In August, we officially moved back home.
And every moment we spent sweating, crying, frustrated, exasperated, (insert any synonym of "stressed the heck out" here), it was 100% worth it to see my kids running full tilt towards their grandparents the moment our feet landed back on the red clay of Tallahassee soil.
SO... although I said I wanted to do something big this year, and this wasn't originally in my non-verbalized mental plan I told NO ONE about... I could not be any happier or prouder of us for taking this leap. We needed this as a family and for ourselves as people who love our blood humans.
Thank you for welcoming us back home, Tallahassee. Bless, bless, bless you.
Lesson:
Life looked good on paper,
but our hearts kept telling us we belonged somewhere else.
