The Coming of Lasts

It was the day of my book club last week, possibly my last time to meet with them since my swim class will fall at the same time as book club in March and April. (Wow. Possibly my last.) I hadn't finished the book yet. The family taxi had delivered both Britt and Ava to their schools, and I was taking myself home. I parked my car facing "my" part of the mountains, whose highlights were a little less evident that day than they had been the day before. Sprigs of grass were beginning to poke through the remaining snow. I felt the passage of time...the coming of "lasts." I choked up. I felt an unexpected (and premature) twinge of homesickness. And not for Texas. For home.

Home is here now.

Rapidly approaching is the life change that will send us back to square one. Again. And not here. Last time there was a promise attached that if I didn't like it there, I would only have to give three years of my life to that place. This time not so much. It's open-ended. This is sort of "it." The thing we've been looking forward to together for eight years...finally settling in somewhere we don't intend to leave for a long, long time.

Our time here, while brief, has been valuable in so many ways. When we arrived, I liked it here well enough, but I certainly didn't see what all the big fuss was about. This city is lacking a lot of things I had grown to expect. (At least they finally got a Target.) I figured I would like it here fine but that I'd be so glad to get back "home" to Texas by the end of three years. Even after a whole year living here, I still thought that. But something happened during our second year here to change that. Friends. I looked up one day and realized I had a little family of friends here now, and suddenly I didn't feel so alone. And one of those friends forced me out onto the sea of confusing spaghetti roads in areas of town I'd never dared to explore alone the year before. I started knowing my way around a little more confidently. I started feeling like we live here. And then we finally found a church...and more friends. Life was weaving us an even stronger support net. And we were home, even if it took two years to feel it. (I know that it may take that long again and to be patient; it will be okay.) Living here has taught me to live someplace new to me. Anywhere, USA. So I know going into this cross-country move that I can do this. And I can do it better this time.

But it still makes me homesick to think about it.