My husband took my son to Target. The house is dead quiet and I should be cleaning because I only got about half of it finished yesterday. I tried, really I did. But there was a walk to the park. There were cars that needed to be driven around the house and up the walls. There was lunch to be eaten and, when the nap was finally taken, there was a Christmas scrapbook that needed this year's page finished so that it could be put away. So I should be cleaning. Instead, (shock!) I'm blogging.
I think I'm finally starting to realize that I don't get to go home. Oh sure, I get to visit but IT IS NOT THE SAME! I don't think you can find yourself, permanently, in a completely different world and not feel changed, not feel shaken to your core, not feel, a little like hitting something. I'm not homesick the way I was at sixth grade camp where there were about 45 students for every one adult and I got the brilliant idea that since I only got one three-minute shower during the entire week I would put the shampoo in my hair before getting in, to save time, and consequently had greasy and disgusting hair for the rest of the week and the cold wind howled all night and I just wanted to go home. It's not like that. I cried at sixth grade camp, silently, in my bunk--and I'd been to camp before, I wasn't a weenie. I don't cry here. Here, I just feel, kind of, hollow. I know that cars are whizzing down Main Street and I can see them so clearly it's almost as if I'm there, running some errand. I know that women are walking up and down the aisles of my grocery store, stopping to chat when they see a friend. I know that world is spinning with a life that I am no longer a part of. This is the world I live in now. It's a world where I literally live for Sunday to come so that I can see a familiar face, so that I can soak up knowledge of my relationship with the Lord. I'm sure that is a very good thing. I am positive that there will be spiritual growth born of this journey.
Last night the wind whistled mournfully across the valley. It was cold and biting and, as I looked out the window, my street was asleep with the solitude that I feel, momentarily, when I throw a party laden with pity and invite...myself. I was suddenly sinfully jealous of people who, through circumstance, have security in the roots that have grown under them when I, myself, have been severed from mine. But how often do I mistake my own happiness for God's blessing? And how many times has God's reward shaken me to my very core? And how often is He right? Always. So if I could just push through this feeling that my feet are walking on uncomfortably foreign ground, maybe I would find that this is one of those times that He is carrying me. Maybe, upon further examination, I will discover only one set of footprints in the sand.
The journey for me is long, it has taken me on several twists, turns and hills. Each time I go back, I come home with a whole new set of emotions that I have to take the time to wrestle through. You see I am a weenie and a whimp, so I'm encouraged that your journey, though just as painful(maybe more so) will be joyful sooner than mine, you are much stronger, than I. :o) Chin up girl, you can do this!
ReplyDeleteWell, clearly you need to just come back and live here. We can split my hundred dollar rent. Fifty bucks...oh, and 20 for your half of the internet. Deal? No? Fine. I'm not going to say "I know how you feel" because I don't. No one ever does, so that statement is stupid. I do understand, though, that given your circumstances, what you are feeling is normal. You are grieving a loss, not in a someone-just-died sort of way, but in a losing-your-first-real-home sort of way. Whatever you do, don't ever think that you should be over it or that you're feeling sad for too long. Its a process to get through and we all grieve at different rates. There ya go, thats my post-college edumacation coming out. I wish I could make you not sad. But, alas, I cannot. Seriously, Hosehead, fifty bucks. When I first typed hosehead, I forgot the "s". I do not want my sister to be a Hoehead. Hehe.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you will........
ReplyDeleteFind that one set of foot prints in the sand, I mean.
Welcome to Babylon. This is where you belong. It is best not to entertain thoughts of living elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget Jerusalem. It really was a wonderful place that shaped you into who you are today. Just know that God didn't send you to the wrong place. Commit to where you are because that is where God has placed you.
Jeremiah 29:4-7
4 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."
Lori, I know exactly what you’re going through! I know what it’s like to feel like you’re living on an island that is beyond foreign, waiting for the one day a week to get together with a familiar face and even then still feeling like a stranger in what is now being called your new “home” I too spent almost 26 years in So Cal and when I left I felt it was anything but WRONG – even though moving to Washington was 100% right, decided by me, and what I ultimately wanted… but oh man there is no way to prepare for that transition. There isn’t. And logically and by faith you can know that this new place ultimately is home and that it’s right for it to be home – but it doesn’t feel like home… and for me I longed too for the return to San Diego to visit my TRUE home…. But sadly it was the lowest of the low for me when I was back less than a month after the move and THAT didn’t feel like home either. I felt completely lost for a place to call home. I finally developed a network of friends that helped me acclimate to my new home and I got a routine and slowly my home felt like HOME. It took several months, I cried like crazy late August (I moved here mid-June) that I just needed to go be with someone from home – and I did, I went home and spent a weekend with Carrie… and it helped so much to just feel normal and after that it felt easier to go back and make Washington my home. So hang in there and know that it will feel like home and this empty, quiet feeling will fade. Feel free to talk to me whenever you need. Love you!
ReplyDeleteI moved over 3000 miles away from family and friends. What was I thinking? Excited, but scared to death. My kid's grandparents were not happy, but we felt it was the right thing to do. Now, we know beyond a doubt that this is where God wants us to be. He brought us here. It has taken me 6 years, but now I am involved in a church and making new friends. It made all the difference to me.
ReplyDelete