Oh my goosey! In 17 days we will be in a U-Haul, on our way to Bend, Oregon. I’m sure this is old news to anyone reading this, but I gotta document it anyway, right?
Side note, my Pandora is a total teenage girl right now, and my fake eyelash has suddenly decided to start stabbing me. My life….!
Anyway. On Sunday we were totally grilled by our pastor about why we’re going home, and it surprised me a little bit. You’d think, of all people, he would understand when we say “It’s time; God is taking us home”, but apparently that wasn't enough. Maybe he feels a responsibility to make sure we aren't just doing whatever the heck we want and saying it’s because God told us to. So we started running through the story, though there really isn't much of one, because we have no plans. God said go, so we’re going. Stepping out in faith. Abram-ing it. All that good stuff.
We have always known we would go home eventually, and over the last 6 months or so we knew it would be sooner than we originally had assumed. Things weren't going quite as smoothly here as they had been; my dance team fizzled out, everyone we moved here with moved back, Jesse was feeling stuck in a job rut, my new position was not what I expected it to be, Jesse’s grandma passed away, my grandma was in the hospital a couple of times….It started piling up, and when we went home for Granny’s memorial service we knew it was over. I stood in the church with my siblings and dreamed of us cruising down to The Ranch with spray paint to stake our claims on the pieces of land where we will build our tiny homes and live together in perfect familial harmony. We schemed to find nice, only slightly crazy people who would be willing to live in our commune and provide spouses for our future children. We laughed at Bubba and the candy that was “SO GOOD!” We cried at the funeral of a woman none of us knew well and many of us had never met because we are learning life is as fleeting as it is beautiful. Someday we will all be together in the commune that is our eternal home, I know, but that doesn't make being apart any easier while we are here.
Long story short, we will not fly back for another funeral; we will be there for the life which comes before.
As soon as we got home Jesse asked me to run the numbers and figure out how long we could make it in Oregon on one income (since I would have to quit my job and had no idea how long it would take me to find one). We looked at our bank accounts and decided the safe thing to do would be to stay here till June, which had been our most recent plan. We knew we couldn't leave until Jesse’s suppressor came in, because you can’t move until the background check is finished. That was September 28th. The next afternoon he texted me on his way home from work and said “pack your bags, baby!” The suppressor came in one month before our apartment lease will be up, which is just enough time to give notice to the apartment and our jobs. I felt awful leaving Party Planet, because I am the only dance teacher, and my heart hurt to think these girls will be losing dance, but Leslie managed to find someone who used to own her own studio to come in and continue my classes. It couldn't have worked out better if we had planned it.
Last Friday I got a phone call from a guy named Bryan, who is Justin’s attorney and needs someone to help out in his office that he shares with Justin’s wife, Christy, who is an accountant. He says he’s at the point where he can’t quite manage everything on his own, but isn’t sure he’s ready to hire an employee. If all that works out (no promises), then basically I would be doing the same things I do now, but dealing with adults instead of babies. It was rather amusing how everything he said made me think “been there, done that, signed the paperwork”, down to working in an office with no windows. It sounds like it wouldn’t be the most glamorous job ever, but it’d be familiar. Also, I didn't notice any grammatical errors on his website, so I would feel comfortable working for him.
Now all we are waiting on is for Jesse to get a call from Nosler, the company he is hoping to get hired at. That was the only thing we had planned and is so far the only thing not working out….That and finding a house, which we can’t really do until we have jobs. We really would like to have a house lined up before we leave here, because if not, we will be living in Justin’s “spare oom” for a while. Spare ooms are great, and all, and I am so thankful to Justin and Christy, being willing to open their home to us, but it’s not a forever situation. Also, if we could find a house, say, in the next week or two, we could theoretically have Thanksgiving in Bend, and we wouldn't have to flip a coin to figure out whether we’re going to Colton or Kellogg!
Honestly, that is the one thing I've really been stressing over, this week. Is that ridiculous? I’m about to pack up and move across the country with no house and no jobs, and I’m worried about where we will spend Thanksgiving. But this will be our first Thanksgiving in Oregon since we got married, and the first one we will have to pick a house to go to. The year when we were dating the Cline family brought their venison up to the Smith house and we all had a jolly good time. I love Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a big deal. Having to pick someone to spend Thanksgiving with, knowing you’re not going to get to see the other someones, is super difficult!
But it will all work out. In the meantime, I have 10 more getups! Only 10 more getups before we are getting up at 3 am to drive to the airport and pick up my favorite parents-in-law. Only 10 more getups before I say goodbye to all my kids and the women who have shaped my life for the last 2 years. After 10 getups I will turn in my keys and leave East Elementary for the last time. There will be tears and hugs and laughter and possibly some things we can’t have at school…but we don’t talk about that…Right now is the lull before the storm. Now is the time when I am a little excited, and a little sad, but mostly life goes on as normal; I still have to get up and get my paperwork done. Soon we will enter the mad dash to get everything packed and loaded in the U-Haul and get ourselves on the road again. Soon we will be home, even though we will never truly be home again, because a part of my heart will always be in Breckenridge, Texas.
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