If Home is Where Your Heart Is…….

Moving is hard.

Don’t get me wrong – I fully trust we are where we are meant to be.

I love our new home and our new town. I also miss our old home and our old town.

I have met some amazing people and am beginning to form friendships. I see a lot of potential, but developing close friendships takes time and we haven’t put in the time yet.

I miss the ease. I miss the comfort. I miss looking into someone’s eyes and really knowing who they are. Knowing their back story. Knowing their heart. Knowing their dreams. Knowing their struggles.

I miss the knowing.

I still think of Westfield as home, but I also think of Nolensville as home. Weird. Right?

Sometimes, it feels like I am living with one foot in Indiana and one in Tennessee. Go, Go Gadget Legs. That’s a pretty far way to stretch.

Where we live now is absolutely beautiful. It’s hilly and lush with long winding roads and pastures filled with cows grazing and chickens clucking. It’s warm. It has great culture, amazing food, a sweet downtown and music to keep me dancing for days. It’s close to mountains and less than seven hours from the ocean.

Where we live now is pretty incredible.

Where we live now is also unfamiliar. I still rarely know where I am or where I’m going. I am directionally challenged and trust my internal compass as much as I would trust the Hamburglar next to a platter of burgers fresh off the grill. Consequently, I rely on Google way too much and am not really learning how to get anywhere.

Where we came from is familiar. When we go back to Indiana, I am comforted by this feeling of familiarity. I don’t really realize how much I miss that feeling, until I am feeling it again. I can tell you where I am. I can tell you how to get somewhere. I can envision a map in my head and I can see where the people I love live on that map. If I were to draw out the map, it would show a ton of little hearts marking the houses of the ones we love.

Like I said before, I don’t doubt for one minute we are where we are meant to be. I trust fully in God’s plan. I can see how He is working in my heart. I can see how He is using this. In my life. In my husband’s life. In my children’s lives.

I am grateful for this experience. I am grateful for this change. It’s been good – but is still hard.

We made a quick trip back to Indiana this weekend for our niece’s graduation. It wasn’t well planned and was filled with spontaneity. ?The opposite of how this Type-A personality usually rolls.

It made my heart happy. And it made my heart sad. Whenever we go back home, I wish we had more time. There are so many people I want to see. There is so much I want to do.

And I can’t. We can’t.

There just isn’t enough time to squeeze it all in.

And this is hard for me. I leave with the weight of the feeling that I have let people down. That I have disappointed people in some way.

I am in a space where my main focus is the kids. What do they need? What is best for their little hearts? ?And that usually leads us back to Westfield – back to the familiarity. Back to the comfort and joy that we felt in our old town – in our old neighborhood. We can sit in the backyards of loved ones and feel for a minute like we are still there. The kids run from house to house, ringing on doorbells and gathering friends for an outdoor game or two.

It feels like we’ve never left.

And it feels like we’ve been gone for a long time.

Kids are bigger. Changes have been made to homes. Someone has a new haircut. Or a new car. Restaurants are gone. New ones stand in their place.

It’s the same.

But it’s different.

For those of you we weren?t able to see when we were home, please know it isn’t because we don’t love you. Please know it isn’t because we don’t care. Because we do care – a lot. We are just still in a weird place. We are still figuring this out.

And it?s hard. My heart feels pulled in so many directions.

As we are driving back now and the terrain is changing from flat to hilly – I am ready to get back home. And, at the same time, I feel like I just left home.

If home is where your heart is – then in this moment it feels like I have two homes. Because my heart is definitely in both places. I guess it’s like when you have children. When a new child is born, you don’t love your other children less –

your heart just stretches and expands in ways you never knew possible.

You don’t love less – your capacity to love just grows.