Tomorrow Mind.
I have been moving my entire life. My dad says I must have inherited his nomad blood. It’s honestly a near miracle that as I write this, I haven’t left the country in almost three years.
As long as I can remember, my family has moved house at least every few years, whether down the street, across the pond, or way away in another hemisphere. Sometimes we left for a different job or for a better school, a cheaper rent or a safer street, but sometimes we left because we just wanted change. When I celebrated my high school graduation with a month in Asia, everyone knew I had caught the travel bug and that I would not be sticking around for long. The only thing that kept me in the country for another two years was the embarrassingly small figure in my bank account - and the only thing motivating me to make that number move was the possibility of leaving once again… only to return with even less to my name than when I began.
So I traveled. Trip after trip. Europe, Africa, Asia, America and back - each time feeling the yearning in my heart, that I might experience that same level of satisfaction in staying as I did in going. Because when I thought about a future of exploring the world and all of its culture and beauty, going from place to place and people to people, I felt amidst the excitement a small hope that maybe instead, I would find a home. And that maybe instead of finding another place I wanted to explore, I would find some place I wanted to stay. That maybe I could one day live somewhere where I could paint the walls or plant a garden or where my kids could come back to decades later and recall that time with that thing and those people when something happened in the backyard when they were six or was it seven?
And soon, everywhere I went, my heart screamed, “Here! Maybe this is it!” And every time it screamed, I doubted, because history tells me that I’d be ready for change again pretty soon.
In 2021, I needed a break from my life. I was burned out and tired and wanted some time away, so I planned to spend the summer over in the US. I made very few plans, except to try and answer the question of if God might be leading me to move stateside. In my first two weeks on the Californian coast, my heart was quieted with peace, that this country was calling my name, and the time to move was coming soon. And with that settled, then came the even bigger question, the one I had been asking my whole life: “When I go, will I finally find home?”
I believe in a yearning of the heart that will not be satisfied until we reach our heavenly destination, but if I’m honest here, I could, on occasion, give you these pretty words to justify my simple refusal to just stick around. I’m not sure if it’s boredom or a fear of the mundane, or maybe I need to believe that I’m made to love where I live and that I have a right to chase that - but I do confess that I am prone to leaving. As I’ve grown older and started finding my forever people, like my husband, Callan, I’ve begun to understand that although it takes balls to move and start again, there is even greater strength in staying. I think God wants beautiful things for us, like a rich community and a purpose and a legacy and some damn good memories. But if we’re ever going to experience all of that, we have to go through stuff with people, mend relationships when they’re hurting, show up when we’re tired, stay on some sinking ships, and put down the match before the wind blows and all of sudden we’ve burnt some very lovely bridge.
I want to be that old lady I heard speak at church that said she’d been there for fifty years.
She has balls.