Moving is Hard to Do

We’re packing up for the movers to come. I hate packing. I hate moving even more. Every moment to stop and reflect feels like the last one I’ll ever have. Tonight I had a moment to cook dinner with Little Miss and Daddy and J-Bug scootering off for some groceries. I listened to some music that was probably too nostalgic for tonight.

Because I managed to hand everyone their bowl of pasta and immediately curl up into the fetal position under one of the kids’ blankets, tears rolling.

I’m looking around at our cabin walls, with frames that represent 3 years of memories, hard lessons, community.  The fridge is covered with my son’s crafts from preschool. Our living room is littered with treasures. The giant pine cone our neighbor gave us, photo frames of our family, sage green walls my husband painted when we moved in. And every chair represents a different friend—ones who’ve grown closer every month, who we trust with our life and heart, who we can’t imagine life without.

Is this the heartache that comes from really loving people? From really settling in and staying long enough that it hurts this much to leave??

I wouldn’t know.

I realize that I have not lived anywhere longer than 3 years since college. That was 11 years ago. I’m used to moving and I’m used to loving on a surface level so as to make the next move manageable.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve been this deeply invested in one place since high school. I know that I must have been missing out in these last 18 years.

I’m looking at this sketch I drew, hung in a frame on the wall. It says “Do one thing at a time, and while doing it put your whole soul into the exclusion of all else.” (Swami Vivekananda)

That’s what I learned high up on this rocky mountainside. The place I hated but learned to love, that had me trapped until I stood my ground and God restored my peace. You don’t have to be buried by what life throws at you.

I learned to do one thing at a time, and to do it well.

And in doing so, I fell in love. I watched my friends grow and even heal! I watched the power that community has on all of us. And a part of my heart planted itself in this rocky soil. To leave is to rip that part out. But to stay is to forfeit the growth and purpose we see ahead.

My one true hope is that that part of our heart that remains will somehow be a seed planted in this place. I feel privileged to have dug roots so deep that they can never be fully dug up.   We will always have a piece of our hearts in this tiny mountain town.

And the friends who have captured our hearts are the kind who stick close, wherever you go. Yes, the story of these friendship has only begun. So I cry for today, but I hope with expectation for tomorrow.