A few posts ago (I know they’ve been sporadic and few lately), I discussed an announcement I waited a long time to officially make. In fact, that was why my posts had been so few and far between. When you can’t talk about the biggest thing going on in your life, it seems silly to talk about anything else. Making sure all of the right people knew about our plan to leave our town, sell our house and move to a new city before we spread it loud and clear to anyone who stumbled upon this online scrapbook was important to us and time consuming. I also wanted to be emotionally ready to talk about it with friends who are not in my immediate, everyday reality. At that point I was feeling nostalgic about this place we met and got married, but starting to picture a new life in a new city. That’s what I do to make myself unafraid – I picture it. If I’m giving a presentation to my peers or going through a big life change like this one, I have to see it in my mind’s eye before it happens. Otherwise, I’m paralyzed with the overwhelming uncertainty of it all.
We bought ourselves some Sonic Slushies and made an afternoon of driving through what we determined to be our desirable suburbs near this new city. We thought we’d be able to feel which of them might suit us best. We knew (thought) we were going to love living in a city with so any interesting things to do, places to eat, people to see. And we were certainly going to enjoy finding a quaint, old house with tons of character. We wanted brick and archways and intricate 1950’s tile and built-ins and hardwoods and lots of extra charm. We found that whole list in a few neighborhoods and filed the information away in our brains for that far away when it was time to start thinking about that leap.
I looked up recommended timelines for selling a house – how many months out should we start talking to realtors and listing our house before I would need to join Matt in our new town? I brainstormed the qualities of desirable school districts with a colleague who grew up in the area. I purged some furniture and clothes – thinking ahead to the impending move. Every chance we could, we went to our favorite Saturday/Sunday brunch place – we ordered coffee (a weekends-only treat for me), Turkish eggs with feta, green pepper and cherry tomatoes and a whole wheat biscuit with homemade mixed berry preserves that can bring me to my knees. On my part, so many mental preparations were made, plans rearranged, bits of the adult I grew to be here in this place compartmentalized into new and old memories and experiences.
We’ve decided to stay. Not move. Not have our “adventure.” Since mid-October, I find myself rearranging again. Opening up compartments and dusting off my life here, like I would with a packed-up sweater on a chilly day in May. I was surprised to feel how tough that actually was – the pulling back. I was sad to stop dreaming about a new interesting house to fix up. Sad not to be closer to both of our families. Sad to have to go back and tell those important people that we were not going to move after all. That lasted only for a few days before I realized that I was getting my “old” life back before I ever really left it. And peace. That’s what I was starting to feel for the first time in a long time.
Moving was going to be so stressful – and we were totally in. There was never any question of that. Matt is my person. I am his. I was, and am, completely supportive of our original decision to move because of his job. I am also completely supportive of our decision to bring him back to our town – that same one we met and married in. We may not be rooted here permanently. We can still see ourselves moving to that other city and living a lovely life there, but not at this time. Now I know I can do it and when the right time comes, we’ll be able to take that trip together. A necessary sacrifice, living apart was so hard – more difficult that I like to admit. And now that we have each other back we can actually sleep during the week again. That’s what having him back is. Being peaceful enough to finally sleep.
