Waiting
It's the waiting that drives me crazy.
Maybe you've heard that we applied for Leavenworth last month. I feel like I've lived a lot of my life waiting for my real life to start. Here I am a third of the way through and I'm still waiting for the next chapter so my real life can start. It's not that I don't take this part seriously, because I do. It's just that I have this idea of what it should look like, and it doesn't. Some things do, like the dreamy husband and houseful of kids, but this little bitty borrowed place that we call home doesn't fit the model of my real life. And neither does California.
When I was fourteen, my aunt Kim brought me out here for the first time. I gotta tell ya, I was pretty darn dazzled by the culture out here. I had only one connection to California, and she fit the mold of Californians to a tee and I adored her. The ocean, the mohawks, the mountains, the Birkenstock, all of it; I was in love. But then I grew up, and decided who I was, and that there was a good life right were I was: the right life. So ten years later when we made a second trip across the country for my brother's wedding, it was clarity for me that I never had any interest in living in California. My life was goood. RRRREALLY goood!
You can imagine my surprise when we got the call that we were being considered for a position in California. Then we moved out here. BUT we knew we would be able to leave in a year or two, and it got our foot in the door so we could do it. Plus the ocean, the mountains, the flowers, the fruit; there are perks.
But this is what I really want to be looking at, from the passenger's side of a moving truck. The wonder is gone. This place has lost it's luster. (I do love the vineyards, but that's it. Nothing else!) I just want to go home. I want to appreciate the turning of the leaves, drifts of snow, Midwestern wildlife. I want to get in my car and drive for a few hours and be immediately welcomed by people that love us and know us. I want to put roots down and stay put. To know my mailman and the local butcher. To connect with the farmers at the farmers markets and call them by name. To go through the same line in the checkout long enough to learn the cashier well enough to bring her Christmas cookies when we do our deliveries. I want to go to a church more than an hour a week and work hard to establish relationships with people there so that we can function in the body of Christ as we were intended to.
All of these things I could do here, really I could. I just haven't because I thought we were leaving all this time. We really might be leaving and I have high hopes for our future. So for now we're just waiting. Honestly, it's the hardest part.
Maybe you've heard that we applied for Leavenworth last month. I feel like I've lived a lot of my life waiting for my real life to start. Here I am a third of the way through and I'm still waiting for the next chapter so my real life can start. It's not that I don't take this part seriously, because I do. It's just that I have this idea of what it should look like, and it doesn't. Some things do, like the dreamy husband and houseful of kids, but this little bitty borrowed place that we call home doesn't fit the model of my real life. And neither does California.
When I was fourteen, my aunt Kim brought me out here for the first time. I gotta tell ya, I was pretty darn dazzled by the culture out here. I had only one connection to California, and she fit the mold of Californians to a tee and I adored her. The ocean, the mohawks, the mountains, the Birkenstock, all of it; I was in love. But then I grew up, and decided who I was, and that there was a good life right were I was: the right life. So ten years later when we made a second trip across the country for my brother's wedding, it was clarity for me that I never had any interest in living in California. My life was goood. RRRREALLY goood!
You can imagine my surprise when we got the call that we were being considered for a position in California. Then we moved out here. BUT we knew we would be able to leave in a year or two, and it got our foot in the door so we could do it. Plus the ocean, the mountains, the flowers, the fruit; there are perks.
But this is what I really want to be looking at, from the passenger's side of a moving truck. The wonder is gone. This place has lost it's luster. (I do love the vineyards, but that's it. Nothing else!) I just want to go home. I want to appreciate the turning of the leaves, drifts of snow, Midwestern wildlife. I want to get in my car and drive for a few hours and be immediately welcomed by people that love us and know us. I want to put roots down and stay put. To know my mailman and the local butcher. To connect with the farmers at the farmers markets and call them by name. To go through the same line in the checkout long enough to learn the cashier well enough to bring her Christmas cookies when we do our deliveries. I want to go to a church more than an hour a week and work hard to establish relationships with people there so that we can function in the body of Christ as we were intended to.
All of these things I could do here, really I could. I just haven't because I thought we were leaving all this time. We really might be leaving and I have high hopes for our future. So for now we're just waiting. Honestly, it's the hardest part.
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