We've done these big moves a couple times. Nashville to Holland. Holland to Nashville. Nashville to Sydney. Sydney to Houston. I've come to recognize a certain pattern of disconnection that enters when I travel for a holiday and it's coming time to return home.
I feel a bit lost and disconnected, trying to remember "home" - where it is, what it looks like, and who my people are.
This listlessness set in several days ago, when we were closer to the end of the holiday than the beginning. When my thoughts started to turn to home, they immediately flicked to Australia, and I had to stop and remind myself that now going home means going to Texas. My mind began to bring up images of the things I love - our sun room, the view of trees from our bedroom window...my garden and the pool.
In reality, the house is all boxed up. Only minimal furnishings remain to make the house livable for the person looking after it while we are gone. The plants are dug out of the garden and waiting in an army of plastic pots. That life, in that house has already been wrapped up, it only needs moving.
Over the years I have discovered a way to mitigate this lost feeling. Towards the end of a trip I think about my routine "back home". I think about my friends and what they are doing. I send some texts and emails, planning some play dates or some coffee meetups for as soon as the jet lag wears off. I've found that if I get back "home" and end up having a lonely week, it can lead to me feeling entirely disconnected and wondering "do I even belong here?" when I really do.
This week rather than coffee dates and play dates, I have moving plans, and am so thankful to have friends to call on for help.
"Can I leave my kids at your house for a couple hours while the movers are emptying the house?" I ask a friend. I marvel at the rapidity of her response, an unchecked "YES" to my three jet lagged offspring.
The babysitter can't come the morning we need to sign our contracts, but her mother agrees to come instead. I am so thankful for our sweet babysitter and her family who have made our lives so much easier this year.
I am not doing this alone. I have people to go home to. I have things to do. I won't drift off into the stratosphere. I am so thankful.
I love reading this. We just moved after 14 years of living in the same house (even though we are still in the same town.) But I have been struggling with similar thoughts and feelings. Thanks for putting yours into words.
Posted by: Amanda | 05 July 2014 at 10:37 AM
I have found this true even with being gone for one week. You have such a way of identifying heretofore unidentified nuances of my emotions--and for me my thinking ahead is how much my garden will have grown in the week I've been away completely removed from even thinking about it. Did it rain while we were gone? Are the cucumber vines twining on their fence? How much have the watermelon and squash plants grown? And the weeds still left--how eager I am to get rid of them. Thank God for these things that attach us and keep us from floating off into the vague yonder--even if they are only squash vines sometimes. :-)
Posted by: quietstream | 06 July 2014 at 09:09 PM
So glad to hear you've found a way to keep rooted. Sometimes knowing yourself and what moves you is the best way to keep knowing those around you and what's important to you.
And yes, sometimes it's the curly clutches of a cucumber vine that help :]
xoxo
Posted by: Adelle | 07 July 2014 at 10:12 AM