Summer Road Trip

Vacation was vacation.  It was relaxing, and fun, full of play, naps, good food, and a measure of hard and stressful too because real life happens even on vacation.  We had our share of misadventures and unexpected hiccups, like having to replace the steering on Todd's new truck the day we were supposed to make the drive back home.  Let's hear it for warranties!

I was unsure about the road trip idea from the beginning.  It was Todd who thought we could do it, even with two young boys.  And to my surprise, it was great.  Fun even.  The boys stayed occupied with sticker books and Disney Pixar movies on repeat in the backseat for hours on end.  Apparently, junk food and movies will make any long trip bearable.

We traveled first to North Dakota to spend a little bit of time with Todd's extended family and Todd's parents who were also vacationing there.   We stopped for a day in Minnesota to see the Mall of America and spent the rest of our time in Michigan to catch up with our dear friends who moved there a few years ago.  We got to do life and have dinners and share adventures with Darin and Bethany and their boys Wyatt and Sawyer.

As I get older, and my boys keep growing, I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the memories we are getting to make with them.  The stories we make together as a family and how experiences and times away together will shape their hearts and minds.  There were some days I had nothing better to do than read a book or take a nap.  One afternoon, I laid down with Jacob and watched him sleep and felt myself enter into a kind of rest I have not known in a long, long time.  As all vacations go, it had to come to an end but we made so many fun family memories and were so grateful for the time we had with our friends.

Below are the highlights of our trip, and in no particular order whatsoever.

Finding home away from home

Over 1,300 miles away from home and I have found pieces of my soul along the way as we have journeyed through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas.  Somewhere in waving fields of corn as far as the eye can see, in red barns and blues skies stretched wide and long, something about North Dakota feels like home.  Maybe it's because my husband feels at home here.  Maybe because we are one flesh - I am part of him and he is part of me - maybe there is part of me that is supposed to feel at home here too.  Perhaps it's God's way of tangling a couple together so intimately and deeply that when something fits for one, it can certainly fit for the other too.

But this is definitely his place, much like the crashing waves of the ocean's shore is mine.  And it's fitting for him I think.  North Dakota is much like Todd.  Quiet and calm, gentle and easy, rugged and down-to-earth.  I can literally feel a different pace of life here.  Nothing is hurried or stressful.  Things green and grow in a way that the heat of Texas' summer sun never really can.  And something about this places invites you to slow down.  I've needed that slow down.  We both have.

Today I took in a giant sunflower field.  It was nothing but pure yellow sunshine and joy as if it was created simply for me to delight in. 

I have to say - North Dakota totally gets me.

Even when we were ready to pack up and move here two years ago, me - sight unseen - it never sounded like an exciting destination or a place I would ever choose.  After all, there are so many other showy-offy places to live.  The grand mountains of Colorado Springs, the painted deserts of Arizona, the trendy, fast-paced excitement of New York City, and Florida with beaches that put my gulf coast shores to shame.  And of course Texas - there is no greater place to live than Texas.  But North Dakota?

This place has surprised me.  I wasn't expecting to fall for it and I have a little bit.  Much like I fell for Todd almost 10 years ago - I was surprised that I fell for him too.  He was different than any other man I had known, but I was drawn to him.  I still am.  Even now, in this place that feels like home to him, he feels a bit more alive and vibrant than his normal at-home-in-Texas-self. 

And I'm sure North Dakota is just trying to romance me.  It's showing off with stunningly perfect weather - 76 degrees and breezy.  The grass is so soft you could literally fall asleep in it.  And the neighborhood where his uncle lives feels like something I have read out of a story book where neighbors don't have fences and everyone grows vegetables in their back yards and goes to a family fish fry on the weekend like we did yesterday. Plus, it's summer and I'm not here during blizzard season.  Snow would not be the way to my heart.

Somewhere between the sunflower fields and evergreen tree-lined streets and taking a break from my normal routine and pace of life, I've found rest for my heart.  My mind is alive and buzzing and everywhere we have gone, I'm writing some sentence, some story, some piece of poetry in my head.  Even now, I feel as though I'm spilling over.

My soul feels at peace here.  I'm curious about how at home I feel when I'm so very, very far away from it.

The anger

It came last night.  Finally. 

After the boxes of our half-way packed house were stacked in the garage and tears were cried about how dreadful winter is and after I'd given five hundred stale answers to people asking about our "timeline" for the move and Todd's job and how much I'm enjoying (or not enjoying?) my new role as a stay-at-home mom. 

The anger.  Raging, ugly, writhing anger.  It came.

It's not fair.  It doesn't feel good.  To finally have my husband in a job where he feels happy and proud of himself and has a real career.  He is so full of life and vigor and excitement about the possibilities that are ahead of us there.  I even have the choice to stay at home more with my boys.  But.  BUT. 

For me though, I have to give up so much to have these other things.  I have to leave my beautiful home and my entire family.  I have to say goodbye to the most wonderful, real, fun group of friends - a community of couples and families that Todd and I had always hoped to have.  Our amazing church.  Texas wildflowers, the beach only a drive away.  Good barbecue and Mexican food, a culture that I know and understand - one that has shaped me. 

Deep down, I know it will be worth it.  That after a period of grieving is over, that we will settle into life there and at some point (hopefully) North Dakota and all of it's winter, will feel like home.  I know it's where God is leading us to - I have absolutely no doubt.  And maybe that's why I feel angry.  His plan feels clear, it's just that I'm not entirely on board and why can't His plan ever, ever look like mine? 

This would have felt easier a few years ago.  If North Dakota would have happened before Tommy or before we found our church or before a thousand other things.  The cost wouldn't have been as great then as it is now.

Saturday night when my realtor called with the "good news" on our house I burst into tears.  It was so fast and it felt clear that God was ready to really move us.  When my friend Nate asked me how I felt, I initially said that I didn't know how I felt.  And then suddenly, I burst into tears and blurted out what was raw and real for me.  "I don't want to go!"

And that's true.  I don't.  And what is also true is that I do.  I'm ready for new, for adventure, and for starting from scratch in life.  But as ready as I feel, I feel just as not ready too.

I'm feeling stretched and unearthed.  I feel as if I'm being literally being dug up and uprooted and I'm not so sure how I feel about where I'm being transplanted.  Did He heal me and grow me and prepare me and make me for this?  North Dakota has been on His mind all along?  Am I really ready for this?  Will I be okay?  Those are the places I'm doubting Him - maybe I need more "work" before I can take this on.

I'm just going to say what I'm not supposed to say:

I am the most angry because it feels like Todd gets the better end of this deal.  He gets the place he has always wanted to live, the new job, and us there with him.  And I get to leave almost everything that I love the most. 

I told him this last night - we talk about honest things and where my heart is at.  He gets it and he understands and he is able to hold my anger and grief without buckling under the weight of it.  But, he holds his own pockets of fear too, wondering if I'll resent him for all of this change later on down the road.  He is aware of how great my love must be for him to do this and walk away from our life here. 

And maybe I just wrote out what you're not supposed to say.  The ugly things that are really inside of my heart that I might typically hide.  But it's true.  I feel jipped. 

I know I won't always feel that way.  But today I do.  Today I feel jipped.  Today I feel like I'm getting the short end of the stick on all of this.  Today, I am angry.

For Sale

They say home is where the heart is.  Home is where your story begins.  Home sweet home.  My heart is definitely here.

When we bought our home over four years ago now, I didn't think it would even be possible.  When we found out we were expecting our first child we knew we needed a bigger space and longed to leave apartment living behind.  Todd began the search and to our surprise, we not only found a house that we loved, but we qualified to purchase it - a dream that neither of us thought we would ever see become a reality.

I remember walking in the first time - it felt like home is supposed to feel.  It was open and spacious.  I loved the kitchen and was immediately able to envision dinners around the table and where the Christmas tree would go and how I would place the furniture.  I remember sitting on the kitchen counter, holding my husbands hands and praying, asking God that if this was what He had for us, that He would make a way.  That we could call this lovely place our home.

And it was what He had in mind.  We qualified, closed easily and moved in Valentine's Day weekend of 2009. 

Oh, my home.  I have loved this place.  It has been everything I wanted our first place to be.  Warm, inviting, bright, and spacious.  It holds so many memories, so many faces that have entered our place for fellowship and parties, for prayer and tears, for Bible study, for meals and barbecues.

As I sit here and type, I write with a ball in my throat and tears streaming down my face.  Our realtor is due to arrive in the next half hour to take pictures, put the sign up in the yard and officially list our home to sell. 

At the moment, I feel as though I am the epitome of ambivalence.  I am excited and so ready for this North Dakota adventure.  So anxious to begin this process in hopes of the sooner that the house sells, the sooner we can be together and be a family again.  And I ache and cry and am so, so sad.  To leave this place, our first home, this beautiful place that I've decorated and dwelt in and that has been my shelter and place of comfort for four years - it will soon belong to someone else.  As much as I'm excited about the future, I am just as heartbroken.

The other day, I spent the evening putting bubble wrap over all of my family photos that I had hanging on our living room wall and putting into boxes.  Tears came easily as I thought how the next time I saw these would be when I was unpacking in a new place up north.  I remembered bubble-wrapping my friend's things when they made their move not that long ago and how hard it felt to pack away her memories and how much I would miss her, even wishing it was us that was going.  I remember wondering then if we would ever know that kind of change where we would be uprooted and taken on a big adventure like moving out of the state. 

Needless to say, it feels a bit surreal to be here - to be the ones that will be leaving and saying goodbye. To be the ones that God is moving and changing. 

That's the exciting part really.  To look back on the almost seven years that we have shared our life together and see where God has been moving us.  Even when we felt as though we were stuck and standing still, He was at work, going before us and preparing a way for the more and the change we were so craving.  All of this - the timing, the job, the place, the everything - has had God's handiwork and fingerprints all over it.  As we have taken one step at a time with all of this, He continues to make it clear that North Dakota is what He has in store for us.

But with adventure and change comes loss and grief.  There is so much to leave behind.  The very rooms of our home, the place we have done life together, cried together, prayed together, made love, eaten meals, played with Tommy, celebrated holidays, thrown parties....we have to leave this behind.  Soon, this home will be a memory, a place we used to live, a starting place for when our marriage was young and budding.

It's time though.  I can feel it in my gut.  I know without a shadow of a doubt that God is leading us out of the familiar and the known and has something big in store.  And not just Todd's new job - there is a reason He wants us in North Dakota.  Because God is able - He could have provided something here in Texas. 

 

He isn't just moving us to a new state, He is moving in our hearts and our lives.  He isn't just changing the scenery, He is changing us. 

For now, I will cry the tears that need crying - and there are many.  And at the same time, I will look forward to the future with excitement and readiness too.  My hope is that the perfect family will be able to call our home theirs.  That they may treasure and love this place as much as we have and that many more beauitful memories can be made within its walls. 

For Sale:  Three bedroom, two bath, two-car garage home.  Open floorplan, beautiful kitchen, corner lot.  Perfect for a young family.  Ideal for grilling in the backyard and having your friends over - who will probably pick a spot on the kitchen the floor to sit down and hang out.  The lawn still has weeds that never seem to go away, but it's ideal for water fights and playing in the rain.  Enough space in the living room for the dad to give horsey rides and for three year olds to ride toy motorcycles from the front door to the back door.  The living room window is perfect for sitting next to and reading with your morning cup of coffee, and it's quite lovely if you enjoy watching the rain.  When the sun sets in the fall, the house lights up amber and warm and it will remind you of what falling in love feels like.  Not just a house, but home sweet, sweet, home.

Come to life

It's in the air today.  Everyone seems to be buzzing about spring.  Grateful for warm sunshine and blooming flowers and winter nearing its end.  I never tire of the changing of the seasons even if the changes are more subtle here in the south. 

The rosebud tree outside my living room window is budding with it's usual pink flowers before growing it's yearly leaves shaped like hearts.

I can smell spring blowing through my house this Wednesday afternoon.  The windows are open, the curtains making their in and out motions as the breeze comes and goes.  My heart feels full and content as I busy with housework and the unending organizing projects underway as this time next week, it will be on the market, strangers coming to look at my walls deciding if they want to make them their own.  Much of my heart feels blessed and at rest and peace.

Even my bedroom feels peaceful.  Four years living here and I just now have our bedroom the way I had envisioned years ago.  A beautiful new bedspread, and a piece of watercolor art that my Great-Grandmother Dorothy painted.  Thankfully I can take it all with me and put it in a new home.  But I love the way the light from the windows warms everything.  Makes it bright and inviting.  Romantic even.  Just like a master suite should be.

In all of the projects and even in the beauty of my newly decorated bedroom, sadness is present too.  Knowing this is my last spring here, my last March of warm sunshine and budding trees and sandals.  It's not even 30 degrees in North Dakota - snow on the ground, snow still coming.  Spring still weeks (and weeks) away.

Before Todd left again, we had dinner with some good friends from church.  Our friend Andy commented to me how different my husband was - he was chatty and had a lot to say about his new job and North Dakota and this adventure ahead of us.  "He's different, he has this new sparkle in his eye," Andy said.  I smiled hearing someone else observe what I've seen change in my man. 

I've watched my husband come to life right in front of my eyes with all of these changes.  A new job and career, something he can take pride in, and up north - the place where he feels most like himself.  He has a new energy in his step, a lightness in his voice.  I've fallen in love with him all over again just seeing him soften and sparkle in ways that I've only ever seen glimpses of before. 

My husband has waited long and hard and slow in winter's grasp.  Of evil's assault on his heart telling him he would never be more than what he was.  That he would be stuck, that he was forgotten, that he wasn't worth anything more.  But God....

But God is able to do exceedingly above more than we could ever think or imagine!  Oh how true, how magnificent, how wild is our God!  Like a fierce wind and changing of a season, He brought a long awaited and highly anticipated spring to my beloved.

Thank you Lord for change.  For creation and budding flowers, for warm sunlight, and for making all things new.  Thank you for spring and adventures and grand surprises at the work of Your hands.  May I remember this warmth and beauty and peace in the seasons that are ahead...

Pending

Part of my heart is back in North Dakota.  Oh, do I ache.

Todd left early Saturday morning and much like I had anticipated, it was the hardest goodbye yet.  I sobbed and I cried and I squeezed him tight hoping to memorize his smell and the thickness of arms and exactly how it felt to feel him wrap around me in a tight embrace.  It was the hardest because I'm not certain when I'll see him again.  I don't have a date circled on the calendar or an event like the birth of a baby to dictate when he'll be here.  All I know is that I'll see him again pending the sale of our house and finding a place up there.  He will be back when it's time to pack up and move.  When it's time to say goodbye to everyone - then that will be the hardest goodbye.

It feels hard for life to feel up in the air just after you've brought a new baby into the world.  Nothing feels settled and everything feels like it's hinging on something on else to happen and I wonder how much of the change Jacob feels as an infant.  The more I clean and organize my home in preparation to put on the market, the more sterile it feels.  It's as if the homey feeling I've created here is being packed up little by little in efforts to create a space that feels neutral and inviting for prospective home-buyers.  This process is nauseating to me.  It's my home and our first house and I'm not quite ready to leave it just yet.

We had to declutter and rearrange Tommy's room over the weekend.  When he saw what we had done, he had a massive meltdown and cried everywhere.  His tantrum felt like looking into a mirror for my own heart because as excited as I feel about some of these changes, there is just as much sorrow and rage for all that I have to leave behind.  Tommy's emotions simply echo my own and all I have been able to do is tell him that I'm sorry and cry right alongside of him. 

Tears have come easily since the boxes came out and since my husband drove back north.  And I'm trying to give myself a break about it all, because I did just have a baby and hormones and all of the post-partum glory comes in to play too.  But I feel like a weepy mess and not having Todd here to hold me in all of my emotion and heartache feels unbearable when I let myself feel that void.

After he left Saturday morning, I sat on my bed and sobbed for a while and surrendered to prayer and poured my heart and my guts out to God.  And it wasn't like I hadn't prayed the entire time Todd had been home, but maybe I prayed less because I didn't need Him as much.  I was aware of how Todd's presence here lightened my load and that I was in a place where I didn't need to talk to God about every moment of every day and how I could get through it.  I depend on Todd for things and he loves and cares for me in such tangible ways and the last two and a half weeks felt like a refresher for my soul.  It almost felt like God allowed me to have this much needed break.  But here I am again, in desperate, grasping need for my Savior to get me through these hardest days.  I've dreaded them and am dreading them. 

I keep wondering how I can find joy when my heart aches and when there is so much to grieve.  When so much is up in the air, so much pending.

Two Days

He walked in the door at almost 1:00am Tuesday morning.  I wrapped my arms around him and felt his embrace and didn't want to let go again.  For two days - he was and is all mine.  It's amazing how I am able to sleep better because he is near me again.

Even though it's a short 48 hours, I needed this time.  I needed him.  I needed his face and his warmth and his nearness.

And so did Tommy.  He is thoroughly enjoying having his daddy back.  Though I'm dreading tomorrow and how he will be gone again when he wakes up in the morning.  I'll be left to care for my hurting, confused three year old that can't fully grasp what is going on, what we're doing and why we are not all together as the family he has always known.  Why dad has to be in North Dakota and not here.  And how I don't have the answers as to when we will be all together again - permanently - either.

We had some alone time together last night.  We sat at Chili's and started dreaming over our Dr Peppers - about where we might live and what we needed to do to get the house sold.  What life might be like in this place I've never been to.  The possibilities and and things we can do - like how he will be able to take the boys hunting for snow geese and pheasants and white-tail deer.  How we can build snowmen and make snow angels in the winter and enjoy windows-open weather far more often there than we ever could here.  Though my heart has begun aching for all that I will be leaving behind, to dream with my husband, to really dream about things that are really happening for us - it felt really, really good.

Tomorrow morning, long before the sun rises, he will be gone again.  Driving back up to this place without us to continue training and work and making plans and preparations for his family.  Leaving us, leaving me behind on Valentine's Day.  It's hard and I feel sad.  Dreading the lonely that will once again fill the house with his absence.

But the rest of the day.....the rest of the day, he is here.  He is ours.  He is with us.  And I'm grateful to have this little bit of time.