At Home, Here

Y'all, I swear I just swept the porch.

I spend many mornings on the front porch with a cup of coffee and a book. Sometimes I sit engrossed in the story but many morning the book sits, open and ignored, on my lap. Instead I am engrossed in my new home. I hear the birds calling to each other ('pretty bird, pretty bird' and "ratchhharatchhha'). I watch my neighbors drive by and the squirrels scamper through my yard and into someone else's. If I sit out in the evening with a glass of wine I am witness to kids playing games that I'm sure if I got close enough would remind me of the ones I played 15 or so years ago.

We're happy here in the yellow rental house under the pines. We're happy in our jobs, him at the lab and me in yet another store. I've spent the past few days trying to figure out why we're happy (because, of course, it is not enough to be happy without analyzing--what is wrong with me?). We're in a new state so far from everyone we know and love. So far from our comforts and the familiar and yet we're happy. Yesterday afternoon, walking through the USC campus, dripping in sweat in the 100 degree heat, I figured it out. We're happy because we're moving forward.

Life in Arlington for the past few years was about treading water: finish school, keep my job, don't commit further than two years because then we're outta here, baby. We were making moves to get to where we wanted to be but most of those moves were stationary. Now here we are in a brand new city actually in the future we talked about for so long! We are out of school and employed in our field of choice. We're making decisions for now and next year and the year after that. For so long we were warming up at the starting line and this move down here was like the gun firing and oh boy, we're off!

Now watch us fly.