imageThis is a question I get whenever I tell someone that we have just moved here from out of state.

I think it’s interesting and highlights our safe mindsets. Which is exactly why we moved.

Let’s backtrack a little. This past year  hubby and I made a gigantic leap of faith. We decided to move from Minneapolis, MN to Southern California. We sold our house, packed up the kidlets, drove cross-country with zero road trip plan ( which in hindsight was incredibly dumb, especially trying to traverse the mid-west during Sturgis. We are idiots.) and landed here with no house or jobs lined up.

“You left your family?”

“Neither of you has a job lined up!?”

“Won’t you miss it?”

Yes. Correct. Yes.

It’s been hard. It’s been exciting. It’s been  excruciatingly painful. It’s been full of joy. One minute I want to run back to my beautiful, familiar mid-west with its gorgeous autumns of reds and oranges and crisp air, or its magical, silvery winters. Other times I relish in the balmy palm tree breezes and breathtaking mountain vistas and can never imagine leaving. It’s a work in progress. We get asked why we did it. We have some basic, pragmatic answers to satiate the polite questioner, such as the  fact that we have some family here and that made the leap of faith less scary, or that Minnesota winters are unbearable and soul sucking and we desperately wanted to escape them. Other answers address how little our girls are and how it’s easier for them to adapt now while they are little as opposed to adapting when older. But the root of it is passion. Adventure. Embracing this giant wonderful world we live in. Exploring. And to include our girls. To not wait until they are grown and out of the house. To involve them and be living role models of a family that can do anything together. To open their hearts to change. To help them embrace the critical skill of adaptation. To help pave a road in their futures where they will take leaps of faith and build a life around their dreams because they saw their parents do it.

“Was your job transferred?”

It makes me sad in a way, that the only reason we could make gargantuan changes in our life would be something pragmatic, even out of our control. Why can we not choose just to choose?

At our going away party somebody ominously  warned “You’ll be back.”.

I smiled hugely and genuinely and without hesitation replied “You’re absolutely right. We might.”

The statement felt taunting. Accusatory. Like we were setting ourselves up for failure. Like moving home at any point in our lives would be a shameful retreat. An embarrassment. An admission of mistake making and life ruining.

Oh but how WRONG that is. We are fully embracing this lifetime we’ve been given. If we travel back it would beautiful. It would be a lovely part of our evolving story.

But we don’t know if we will ever move back home. Of if we will stay in California. Or if we will follow one or both of the girls to a state of their choosing. But it is so beautiful to dream and wonder. It is wonderful because it is unwritten.