Impatience

Here I am in the place I’ve longed to be for ten years.  I’m back.  It all feels rather surreal. 

Thomas Wolfe had already warned me that I couldn’t ever really go home again.  I knew this.  I have never been this age, had these children at this point in time, or been the me who lives in this skin in this place before.  Everyone here has also grown and changed.   The roads have changed.  The barbecue, hushpuppies, and sweet tea, however, all seem to have remained constant.  Praise the Lord.

I am elated to be back in North Carolina.  Yesterday I ate my lunch outside in the sunshine.  Folks up in Michigan are buried under a foot of snow and enduring sub-zero temps as I shut my eyes and feel the vitamin D being absorbed through my cheeks.  It is wonderful.  But I am impatient.

I feel the burden of impatience when I wake in the morning.  I want to feel at home at home again.  Reinventing myself here should feel exciting, but it feels daunting, overwhelming, and even a little baffling.  What if I invent a self that is all wrong, a self who isn’t authentic?  Anxiety creeps in as I slide between the sheets at night.  What if my children are never happy here?  What if I have made the worst mistake ever?  Breathe.

My eldest daughter was determined to be unhappy here from the moment we indicated that a move might be in our future. Her first day at school satisfied her expectations.  Everything here is different, and therefore, bad.  There have been lots of tears.  We have both cried as we contemplated the perceived awfulness of starting over in the middle of middle school.  The horror!

Fast forward one week.

The older children have finally started to smile more.  This mama has started to breathe normally again, and I have put down the M&M’s and Doritos in favor of homemade meals that make this new place feel a little more familiar.  Hanging family photos and cooking big pots of soup make everyone feel more cozy and settled.  Family trips to the cinema and the Krispy Kreme doughnut factory remind certain twelve year olds that life may indeed still be worth living.

Bit by bit I have begun to calm my impatience and embrace the new journey that lies ahead.  We are all learning new and valuable lessons.  “Starting over” may not be easy for a ten or twelve year old, but they are developing skills that cannot be learned when one never leaves her wonderfully supportive and nurturing comfort zone.  Throughout this journey we have bonded and been reminded of how much we all love and need each other. 

This morning my oldest daughter was excited about taking a test on 100 Latin and Greek root words.  “I shouldn’t have to take this test because I missed the first part of the unit, but I have memorized them all, and I am going to kill it!”

Everything is going to be okay, friends.  We're going to kill it here.