You Can Go Home Again. Sort Of

It’s been awhile since my last confession, er, blog post. This year of homeschooling has really given me writer’s block. And sleepless nights. And new grey hairs. You get the picture. But I thought I should give an update on what’s going on in our crazy lives, because it’s pretty big.

As most of you know, it has been quite the journey since we made the move from Ohio. At the time, we were faced with the choice to move from the Toledo area to Cleveland for my husband’s job or to move somewhere else entirely. Either way, we had to sell our home and leave familiar surroundings. Obviously, we chose the latter. We went where the weather was more pleasant and the jobs were more plentiful.

But since we’ve been gone, things have changed. Both my husband and I lost our fathers a year apart, which hit us both very hard for very different reasons. Suddenly, being 2,000 miles away felt really FAR. We had a longing to be near the people we had left.

We have parents growing older by the day, a daughter who’s been homesick since the day we left, a 4-year-old who doesn’t understand why we can’t just get in the car or hop on a plane to go see Nana or his favorite cousins. And our almost 2-year-old is like this mystery kid that most of our family has only seen a time or two. It just didn’t feel right anymore. It was time to make the move to be closer to family again.

My husband has landed a job in Ann Arbor (still few IT jobs in the Toledo area) and we are moving back home, albeit to Michigan.

It was hard for me and my husband to agree to this move at the same time. Something would trigger a “We need to go back” response in one of us. The other would talk whoever was having the response down from the ledge. We talked about the “what ifs” and the “what is” situations ad nauseam. But we came to a decision that made sense and felt good for all of us.

We’ve been on the move the last few years. But we’ve also had a ball and I can’t say I regret any of it. We’ve grown closer as a family. We’ve been broiled and baked alive and lived to tell the tale. We have so many special memories and experiences that I will always cherish and relive in my head and through pictures over and over. My children are loved and they are happy. That’s what matters.

Life is short. Too short to not do what you want. Are we crazy for making this move again? Maybe. But as my husband said as he reassured me of this decision, who cares what anyone else thinks. We are doing what’s best for our family.

So we end our traveling journey and go back to where we started (almost). I like to joke that we have just been one of those families who go on the road in the RVs. Just without the RV. And a lot less stops. We are going to Michigan and will buy the house we never felt comfortable committing to buying since we left. And after this time of desert living, as lovely as it has been, I look forward to a real yard with green grass.

We will come back home to the cold, snow and 6 months of grey skies. Nothing can make me look forward to that. But I do look forward to a summer I can enjoy outside because it’s not 120 degrees. Taking my kids to Cedar Point, the place I spent so many summers myself as a kid. Feeling the crunch of leaves under my feet as Fall settles in and going to the apple orchard in cooler temperatures. And best of all: not having to pay for plane tickets for a family of 5 to see our loved ones. Our family will be just a car ride away.

As it turns out, you can go home again. It may not be the exotic place with the beautiful weather, gorgeous scenery and all the big city action that I dreamed of so often in my younger years. But the Midwest, like it or not, is home for me and my family. As the Journey song goes (which my husband says should now be my theme song): “I’m just a small town girl, living in a lonely world…”

Featured Image by: Jimmy Emerson, DVM