We're Moving

And this is where we'll be...

If you know us well, you might be thinking "what else is new?" We have moved many times but this time, everything will be new...sort of. New city, new church, new friends, new surroundings and hopefully new kids someday to join us there. At the same time, we will be closer to Matt's side of our family and some long time friends but these old relationships will be negotiated in new ways which makes them new too.

In two weeks, Matt will be done with his job in Chicago and heading out to Portland, Oregon to look for a job there. Lucia and I will stay here in Chicago and join him (hopefully in the next few months) once it makes sense for all of us to be out there (aka: there is some job prospect and therefore we can pay rent). We have been talking about moving for a while now, in fact since we were married 8 years ago, so it's exciting to be making some real steps towards this move. But it's complicated.

We have moved before, and have moved much greater distances at that, but this time feels more severe. This time, after moving one million times, we would like to settle a bit. This gets complicated when half of the people in our lives are excited about this (the Northwest half) and the other half is sad about it (the Chicago half). The reaction is usually one of the three: "Yay, you're moving closer to us!" from the Northwest crowd, "I'm so jealous, I want to move back!" from the Northwest transplants living in Chicago, or "Why would you do such a crazy thing like that, moving away from family/friends and the best city ever?" from all the Chicagoans in our life. That's the complicated thing about having multiple places that your family calls home. So what do we do? We're just gonna go ahead and make another place our home. And who knows what the future will hold for us, maybe other places to call home too.

So back to that gnawing question: Why would we move away from the amazing family, friends, church community, great weather (ha, just kidding), that we have here in Chicago? You know, I can't really answer that question. It's complicated. I can tell you we are sad to be leaving everyone and everything special to us here. For me, it's home. I'll miss the unique smell of spring, the sound of cicadas in the summer, sometimes even the multitudes of snow in the winter and of course all the people here that I love. There are so many and I will deeply miss each one of you. I will miss seeing your faces. I am grateful to each person and place from my home here that made me who I am today. I was reading a book on an unrelated topic, part of it talking about leaving the familiar and how it is because of a great home, not in spite of a bad one, that we even can leave to explore new places, becoming fuller versions of ourselves in the process.

There are many reasons why we are excited about living in Portland. Some of them are practical and tangible, others are harder to put into words. Amongst all the preparations and unknowns that come along with them, I sometimes get nervous about what we are stepping into as we leave the familiar for all things new but just then--there is that still, small, inner voice simply assuring me that it will be okay. And that's all I really need right now. So we go forward to explore because life is just too short not to.

 A quote I came across today that gets me even more excited about our new adventure...

“The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible, to groom one's curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun-struck hills every day. 

Where there is no risk, the emotional terrain is flat and unyielding, and, despite all its dimensions, valleys, pinnacles, and detours, life will seem to have none of its magnificent geography, only a length. It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.”

—Diane Ackerman