Moving Ramble

So it’s just the oddest thing. The way God changes things. I have this vivid memory of sitting in Dan’s office at Houghton in 1997, digging up anything I could find about Siloam Springs, the town we would be soon moving to. I couldn’t surf the web at home, all we could access there was text only. Isn’t that funny? A little over ten years ago, images on the Internet were much harder to come by. Our home computer didn’t have enough memory or ram or the right card or whatever to see images. So I had to use the internet at Dan’s office.

Anyway, I was so hungry to see what my town was going to look like. I imagined my life here, and how much better it was going to be. I wanted to be anywhere but Houghton, and fast. Lots of things I had no idea about waited for me here in Arkansas: a psycho dog, totally cool artsy friends, therapy, graphic design, writing, having a baby, post-partum depression, a breaking down and a building up of my faith, independence, an uncanny ability to grow basil, and the realization that happiness doesn’t just appear when you move away from a place. I have grown so much in eleven years. But never did I think that we’d be heading back to Houghton. Never.

But crazy. Seriously. Even with all of the knowledge I have of that little corner of Western Ny, of the cold and the grey skies most of the time, and the endless winter, and the miles and miles of, well, nothing, I. Want. To. Go. I can’t explain it. It can only be God. And here’s the other thing. I really like my life here. It’s not like I was just aching to get away. I had plans. I really liked my job. I love, love, love my friends. I felt like I needed to escape Houghton before we came here. I wanted to run away to happiness. (Note to self: the problem with believing that I’ll be happy when is that I bring my inner blackness with me wherever I go…moving doesn’t fix the problem) (I need to remind myself of this every once in a while…)

I don’t want to escape Siloam. Truth be told, I want to go to the Aquatic Center this summer. I want Sadie to go to the sports camps at the First Baptist church. I want to see Dana’s baby. I want to be here when Ellen gets famous. I want to go to Shan’s house for coffee and laugh till I am crying at something Trish said. I want to hang out with Tab and talk about boobs and the Holy Spirit and house renovation all in one conversation, while gesturing wildly and guffawing. I want to be a girl scout leader with Deanna and talk for hours. I want to see how our Sunday school turns out. I want Sadie to go to Allen Elementary next year. I want to be around when downtown Siloam finally gets cool.

It’s hard to think about life going on with out me. But I want to feel the loss, you know? I don’t want to just think about what’s ahead, and forget about what is great right now. Because that would be the easier thing. To shut down and move on. But I can’t. I have to feel excited AND sad. Both at the same time. And grateful too–for all of the gifts God has given me here. But also hopeful for the things He is going to do in my life in this next chapter.

I don’t like to think about leaving. Every once in a while I get this flash forward of us pulling out of our driveway for the last time, and I turn the channel QUICK. But I can’t pretend it isn’t going to happen just because it is going to be hard. Sometimes I wish I could just fly to NY in a blink and not have to deal with it. Skip any kind of closure and dive into our new life–as if the last eleven years didn’t happen. But how can I? It’s pretty crappy, this moving.

But deep down, I know we’re supposed to go. And that helps.