Thirty three hundred miles home

Life often takes a circuitous route that only makes any sense in retrospect. A year ago, we were feeling pretty confident that we would be in Texas for the long haul, or, at the very least, the next 5-10 years. We bought a house, we settled in, and we made it our own. We unpacked all our boxes for the first time in three years. And then we received a call that we never, ever expected.

My husband was being recruited for a job back at Delta. In Atlanta. We agreed it was worth him going through the process but remained unconvinced that anything would come of it. It did though and here we are. We're moving home. We're also leaving home.

It's been a whirlwind of feelings more than activity so far because, in the short term, only my husband is moving. I'm searching for a job but will stay behind at least until we sell the house and probably until I'm gainfully employed in Georgia. So right now, I'm holding my breath, standing on the edge of something big, without anything to distract me from the distinct sensation of holy cow, what are we thinking?

We're going back to people and a place that we both know and love. We're going back to favorite neighborhoods and restaurants and activities. We're leaving all those things too though. It's a feeling that is sometimes joyous and exciting and other times quite the reverse. (It is 100% exhausting, no matter how else I feel about it.) Looming large over all of it though is the worry that things won't be the same. Often, when I leave a place, it becomes frozen in time. I remember it as it was because how else can I remember it? Even now, when we go back to the area of NJ that I grew up in, everything looks achingly familiar and somehow, strangely, alien.

People come and go and we know that, when we move back to Atlanta, we will face the sad reality that some of our close friends have moved away. Places change too and I have to hope that our frequent trips back in the years since we left will prepare me. Most of all though, places change us. It's one of my favorite things about living in new and different places. I always get to come away changed, sometimes in big ways and sometimes in small ones. So a different me will be going back to a different place with some different people. It's the next great adventure and I think it will be pretty cool.

And whatever else may come, I'm really looking forward to night flights over the city again!