I'm Home...Part III

My Kitchen

Moving "back home" was not something I expected to do necessarily.  Though, I expected that we would "move back" to NC after our Seattle, WA adventure.  When we decided to go to Seattle, I thought:  "We'll go...we'll have fun and then we'll come back. And, bonus: we'll have the reverse of the housing market sticker shock when we return."

When we moved to Seattle, we settled on the "Eastside". Which is to say the east side of Lake Washington and not actually Seattle at all.  But Seattle was just a quick ride across the bridge.  There was tremendous sticker shock, but somehow we bought a house that was a wonderful place to call home. I loved so many things about our time in WA, but that is a topic for another day. 

I've always thought that home is where the terrain is.  That the terrain you grow up with is what feels like home. I grew up with green rolling hills and dogwood trees.  When we lived in Va. Beach, the terrain was very flat (like at a beach...).  There were limited trees and absolutely no hills.  I never got used to that.  After our baby was born a homing time bomb went off. "Must return to the homeland" is what my heart told me. I attribute it to wanting to see and live in the familiar while I navigated the world of the unfamiliar (motherhood). We did not move to my "home town" but moved to the same state and my eyes could rest on hills and flowering trees and my restless heart was immediately calmed.

As I've said, I'm from the South.  Our accents are sweet like our tea.  Heaven is a rocking chair on the front porch or on a screened-in back porch.  Hubby and I had recently built the most spectacular screened in back porch when we got the chance to move to WA.  The porch was almost a reason for me to say "No Thanks", plan on sittin' on this porch forever.  But, then we thought:  Why not?  We loved our house. But it was still just a house.  Why not go see this place they call Seattle?  You know, the place where Bobby Sherman and his brothers claimed the bluest skies you ever saw are.  We went and I was in love.  Not once did my homing pigeon heartache for my childhood terrain.

I made amazingly fun friends there and loved the beauty of God's Country every single day. But...my friends and family from "back home" were so far away.  That is what my heart began to ache for. A three hour time difference makes a big difference when you want to make a quick call to Sissy and tell her about the great shoes you just saw but didn't buy.  And when you need her to tell you to go back and get those shoes because you deserve them! When it's 7 p.m. my time and 10 p.m. her time, we just weren't in the same frame of mind.  Plus, there are all the moments of just being able to drop by Dad's house for a sec after work. Or meeting Sis at the Mongolian Grill restaurant after work. These were the moments I was missing.  These were moments my daughter never had. We had always lived about a 3-hour drive to Grandma and Grandpa's when we were on the East Coast so, we never got to just drop by. 

When Hubby and I began to plan our return to my home town it felt so right that it felt unreal. It felt very much like when we moved to Seattle.  That feeling of "Are we really doing this?  Can we really do this?" butterflies of excitement feeling.  Moving home felt the same:  "Are we really doing this? Can we do this?"  Answer:  Yes!