I shared this photo…
with this caption on instagram last week.
……and for those of you who live here, welcome home.
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I love hearing those words on a return flight to Charleston. It’s like music to my ears. You know how Carrie felt about NYC, that’s pretty much exactly how I feel about CHS. .
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Craft a life you don’t need a vacation from ~ you’ve seen or heard that before I’m sure. There’s so much good in that, but in a way it leaves out the real stuff.
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Ran into a friend down in the Bahamas, and she was telling me about how she wants to move here. How she’s always wanted to move here, but she has this friend that keeps telling her that moving is selfish. “It’s selfish to move your kids away from their grandparents and the life they’ve grown up knowing.”
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I don’t know that I’d use the word selfish. Because the word itself implies a kind of wrongdoing.
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But when the changes you make in your life affect the lives of the people who love you, you will get some backlash. EVERYONE around you is going to have an opinion. Some will be sneaky in their ways, making little jabs in an effort to make you feel guilty.
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As I send my son off to high school next week and my daughter off to seventh grade I’m very much aware of how different our home life will look in just a few more years. Our little birdies will spread their wings and take flight.
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And so whenever someone/anyone tries to make me feel guilty for following my dreams, I think about how I’ll feel when I watch my own babies go after theirs. And I know in the depths of my soul that no matter how bittersweet the feeling, I will want nothing more than to see my babies soar!
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It isn’t just about roots, it’s about wings too.
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And after sharing that I’ve received so many messages from people who are wrestling with a decision about moving and are wanting to move but…insert your personal flavor of worry. A lot of you are in a situation where your spouse wants to make a move but you don’t. Or vice versa. And when it comes to moving, believe me when I say, I’ve experienced all the feelings and all the emotions and have lived through all the different scenarios. So today I want to share a little more of our moving story in hopes that it will lift you up and encourage you!
Only you can know if moving is the right call for you, but sometimes hearing about someone else’s experience helps.
Moving, whether you’re moving to a new neighborhood, new city, new state or a new country (something I’ve yet to do) is stressful. And doing it while married doubles the stress. Throw some kids into the situation, and gracious mercy, hold on because this ride’s about to get bumpy. It’s never easy. Moving is hard!
We’ve moved 8 times in almost 18 years of marriage. Six houses, four states, two rentals and a partridge in a pear tree. We’ve lived in my husband’s hometown where we had lots of friends and family, and we’ve lived in cities where neither of us knew a single soul outside of each other. You want to test your marriage? Move to a state you don’t know much about, a place you’ve never visited before moving, where you literally don’t know anyone, with a toddler and a newborn…and two dogs. Our marriage has been through fire.
When we moved from Virginia to Pennsylvania, I didn’t want to go. We’d only lived in Richmond for 3 years, but I became fast friends with the woman who lived across the street from us. Making friends as an adult isn’t as easy as it is when you’re a kid. But she and I bonded over a shared love for Grey’s Anatomy and eating cereal after dinner. When we drove away from that house I cried like a baby.
During the first year at our Pittsburgh address I was resentful. We only moved there so my husband could pursue his dream job. And it was a necessary move for him and his career, but I was lonely. In a new city, with no friends or family support, with a two year old and a newborn, the grey skies of our first winter there reflected my outlook and my attitude. And then when our daughter needed to have heart surgery and we were living right next to one of the best children’s hospitals in the country, I felt God say, “See, I told you so.”
Every move we’ve made has turned out to be exactly what we needed. I look back and wish I could change my attitude, talk things out in a constructive way rather than harboring resentment, but ultimately I can’t regret the lessons I’ve learned. And so, even the hard and the ugly parts of the story I wouldn’t change. Because they’ve made me, made us, who we are.
Moving is a life change like no other. You learn a lot about yourself when you’re a fish out of water.
Some moves might be about a job and some might be about a dream you tucked away in your heart. But every move is a move worth making if the only thing holding you back is fear or the opinions of others. You don’t need a permission slip to live your life!
We often think we need to have all of our ducks in a row before making a big move. So we wait for the market to make a turn, for the kids to finish school, for retirement and for the sun and the moon and the stars to align just right. “Are we planning for a life we may not ever get to live?”, that’s the question we had to ask ourselves before making the decision to move to Charleston.
Maybe you’ll love your new hometown; maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll make fast new friends, or maybe you won’t really connect with anyone right off the bat. Maybe your kids will have a hard time adjusting, or maybe they’ll thrive!
You’ll definitely never know unless you make the move.
I’ve moved a LOT over the years. Some moves have been incredible. Others, well, they weren’t my first choice… but in every single one I’ve discovered something about myself, my family, my life, that I wouldn’t have without that big change. It makes me sad when people refuse to move because of this or that. What if amazingness is just around the corner of that move?