Another week has come and gone. They seem to go so fast lately. Sarah and I had a touch of something this week so we took it kind of easy for a day or two. Taking it easy gives me too much time to think. However, I was able to put some things into perspective and it really helped me to solidify some thoughts I've had running around in my brain.
Scary place that brain of mine.
Anyway, not really the point. Mostly I've been thinking about the places we've been and the places we've lived. I will always be a West Virginia girl in my heart. I didn't grow up there, I grew up in Kentucky but my family all lived in West Virginia and I spent my summers and every school break there. Jamie and I met there. He grew up in WV. We spent the first part of our life together there. We know the hills, the back roads, the rivers and streams. It is our first love. Our families are there. However, an opportunity recently came up that could have brought us back to WV. And love it as much as we do, we decided not to pursue it. It just wasn't right. Not for us. Not anymore.
So we spent some time thinking about the other places we've lived. I'm thankful to have had a few fun opportunities. I'm grateful to have experienced life in Utah. Now that we are away, no one is sick and we all sleep through the night again, we have gained the ability to look back on our time in Utah without the emotions of a new baby clouding things. It really is a stunning place. The mountains and the snow. The streams and lakes that are so clear and blue you can see to the bottom. Being from the East, I didn't know rivers could be clear. I always thought they were muddy green! I can't believed I lived in a place where I could look out my living room windows and see across an entire valley. I've been to the desert. I rode in a Hummer over rocks bigger than a HOUSE. And that blue sky. I sometimes long for that blue sky.
I have made peace with our time there. Maybe even wondered if it ended too soon. I wish we had had the time to do some of the things we missed. I wish I had had time to pay more attention to the wonders around me. Our reasons for leaving were valid and emotional. A difficult pregnancy, a premature baby, a couple illnesses and some surgeries and we just needed some support. So we felt we had to come back east. And I'll always wonder a little bit what it would have been like if we could have stayed a little longer.
So now we find ourselves staring down our future. I'm going to turn 39 this summer. I'm a suburban housewife. We just started looking at minivans. I'm just not sure how I feel about all that right now. Some people are content to go along with their life and not question.They are wonderfully content with what they have. Jamie and I are not those people. We never have been. I'm not sure what makes us the way we are. It's like we want our life to be BIGGER and more adventurous than a suburban housewife and an engineer can expect to have. We try so hard to fit into the roles and the holes we're pegged for.
I like to say we'd have been first on the wagon train back in the day. You know that is probably true!
On that note, I'm off to feed the kids and pack for a trip home to WV this weekend.
From experience, time will never slow down for you. Having 2 - 6, 7, 8 years apart - it's mostly good, but VERY busy! Plus, as an older mom (no offense - our 2nd was born when I was 38), it's sometimes hard to keep up with *everything* and *everybody*.
ReplyDeleteIt'll all work out. :-)