Love, Courtney

When I moved three hours away from home to attend college in Arkansas, my mom made me a sign to help encourage me. She knew (probably not to the extent that it was), that it would be a difficult transition for me. I was recruited to play volleyball and I knew no one in this new place. 

There are a lot of things that I have thrown away and given away over the years, but that sign stays packed away in my valuables. As I began the process of packing our house for yet another move, that sign popped into my mind. It reads, “Change is to give up who you are to become what you could be.” It hit me a little differently this time. This time, it isn’t just me and my husband that I am thinking about.  I have two very aware and connected kids, that I am also asking to do, what I know, is a very difficult thing. 

That sign and quote held no meaning for me when I was 18. It was sentimental because it was from my mom. It was encouraging because it reminded me that the hard emotions didn’t mean I was in the wrong place or doing the wrong thing. But the quote itself held no memory and it certainly did not contain the wisdom that it does now. 

The wisdom it holds now, can only come from experience. 

When my husband and I moved from our college town we were engaged to be married. We packed up what little we had from separate homes, got married and moved in together. A year later, we moved to a new town where we would eventually have our daughter. We were there two years before we moved to our next destination which would be our longest stay (7 years) where we would buy our first house, our daughter would start both daycare and Kindergarten, I would become a school counselor and we would bring our son home from the hospital. Our current stay has been 5 years. We moved closer to family and we built a family of friends.

Our next move, interestingly, will be to the town where this quote first came to life for me. We will be returning to where my husband and I graduated college, met and fell in love, and both got our first real jobs. We will be returning to a town that feels faintly familiar, as completely different people. 

We are navigating all of the emotions of a move. Yes, there is excitement and anticipation, but that is mixed with sadness and uncertainty. What I know is, that these are the emotions of transition.

The comfort I find when the feelings get big is held in the wisdom of the experiences that have brought us this far.  

I know that God’s plan for us is good. I know without a doubt, that he is ordering our steps and providing for us in ways that we cannot even imagine. I know these things because they are hard earned lessons. While I find comfort in these things, this is still very difficult. Because the other lesson is this: we can’t go back. We can visit and we can maintain certain precious friendships. But the reality is, even if we move back someday, it will never be exactly the same, and neither will we. 

During my Freshman year of college, because I played volleyball, I did not get to go back home until Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was so excited to go back to where I felt known. The safety of a town and the relationships that felt easier was what I anticipated. What I found however, is a lesson that has repeated itself with every move. Home no longer felt that way. The people and places felt different, because life had gone on without me (as it should). I remember laying in bed and thinking, “it doesn’t feel like home here, and it doesn’t feel like home at college, I don’t really fit anywhere.” I was in the “in between”. 

The “in between” is the time where your roots have disconnected from the last place but have not yet fully connected in the new place.

I now know this recognition is necessary. We have to give up who we were, let go of what was, in order to become what we could be in this new place. It is a painful choice. It can be confusing and lonely. But it is necessary, and in the end it is good.  

I assume that these are the emotions that anyone in transition has to process. Maybe you are leaving a job, taking a child to college, moving, retiring, experiencing family transitions, etc. If you are, know this, each “place” has taught me so much about myself. Each environment has allowed me to grow in ways the previous environment would not have. I have been surrounded by exactly who I needed to be in order to be pruned and to blossom. 

The “giving up who we are” in one place, season, or relationship is difficult, but in my experience “the becoming” is worth it.

I have to believe that each place we are called to, and eventually away from, was/is for a higher purpose. So, I will trust that this transplant will take us exactly where we are meant to be. The soil in the new place has been cultivated by a God who ordered these steps. The roots grown in our current environment will take to the new soil, flourish in the next and we will become.

Perhaps some people are meant to wander, not to be lost, but so that versions of themselves can be found.