Home New Home.

When last I wrote about our moving to Tennessee, I had no idea the strain that the whole ordeal would place on me.


My advice for anyone who is relocating out of the only place that they have ever known as home--please have your husband nearby.


For the last couple of weeks, while I packed everything up--Daniel had training in Dallas, and though he was only a phone call away; it was painstakingly difficult to go through and pack up all of our earthly belongings alone.

Still, I think many people were curious as to why my emotional state was so deeply affected. I felt depressed, in that numb non-sense way. You can't truly think straight, and memories all blur together because one isn't really more important than another. You go through mundane routines as best you can, but anything outside of that routine is painfully difficult. Your feet feel like lead and you think that the magnetism of your gorgeous bed requires you by some scientific force to remain there for half the day. 

Don't get me wrong, I too was curious at my own response. Wasn't it I who had just weeks before, been researching and exploring all of the new and bright opportunities that awaited us on our new adventure? Wasn't it I who had eagerly told Daniel of the shopping, the restaurants, the theater?! Things I had always wanted nearby. 

Yet here I was. Though my mind spoke to me "Emily, you're being melodramatic. Get up and get something done." and "Aren't you excited for this new experience? Aren't you excited for Daniel?" I would quietly reply "Yes." but my body would not follow through. I sat and stared. I moved one foot and then the other, and managed to pack a box or two.


The days that my sister came over to help, were a bit better. She would get things done and at the very least she would be someone I could talk to, something to make me forget all the dark stifling feelings. But eventually she would leave, and my abyss would close around me once more.


I remember when it hit me as I drove down Catlin-Homer. I saw "the cemetery" and I realized a great majority of the reason that this was so very difficult. Not only is this date so very near the time of my mother's passing; my heart had known something that my mind had not yet realized.

For me, and for most human beings; a mother is "home".


When I lost my mother, I lost most of my sense of "home", but there were still fragments. Bits and pieces of the home that had once been there.


They came in the form of places and memories.


 I could still feel "home" in the kitchen at my dads house, thinking of how she painted that wall yellow, or how her dishes still proudly stand in the china cabinet.


I felt "home" in our church, as I walked past the nursery and thought of all the babies she kissed and coddled there.


I knew "home" when I went to the local coffee shops and remembered how she would take us there for a special treat, or when we had had a particularly difficult day.


Honestly, I even felt "home" as I drove those long, familiar, country roads where she drove us back and forth so many, many times and where we shared many deep conversations of the heart, as we went about our daily lives.

As my realization took hold of me, the tears became overwhelming. A dam broke lose and there I was, the poor victim of the powerful waters.


Many times during these dark days, I would tell Daniel how horrible I was feeling. At the same time, I spared him a lot because he was going through training and I didn't want him to feel more stress than he already was.

At one point, we were having a conversation, and he very bluntly said "Your parents moved a lot. I wonder how your mom dealt with it?"


I had never really stopped to ponder that. I knew my parents moved a lot, especially when I was little--but it had always been something I "knew" but never really grasped. A child doesn't understand the emotional turmoil that it takes to drop everything and change the scenes.


When I was three, my parents moved from Billings, Montana to Illinois. My mom loved Billings. She told me so. Over and over she would recall the beautiful weather, the beautiful house, and all of the things she loved so much about it. Only three months after giving birth, she had to leave that beautiful place that she loved. She had to pick up and move with her five children, to a much more dreary, unfamiliar Illinois. But she did it. And if she complained, I never knew.

My mom told me once, that she was not out-going. (All of you who knew her, just chuckled a bit, I know.)


She said that she used to be quite introverted and not all that great at making friends. In college, she remembered that one day was particularly cold, and she passed a few people who mistook her chattering teeth for a smile. "They thought I was smiling at them" she said, "and I was surprised to hear many of them reply with a 'hello'." All it took was a smile. She said in that moment, her life was changed. She realized that to gain friends, she just had to be a friendly person.


Ok, I am so getting off topic...

The point is, just because she was a friendly person, didn't mean that she didn't find moving difficult; in fact, I'm sure it was very difficult for her. She, too, had to leave "home" behind. Whether it was Billings, or Ohio or Kentucky, or wherever. She left them all behind.


If she could do it, so can I.


I am not changing my mind that leaving has been difficult. It still has. It has been rough and downright miserable at times. I have come to terms that I have truly left my "home". I know that there is a chance I may never go back. I may never be able to raise my kids in the same place my mom raised me. But that's ok, because for them, this will be "home".

So for me, though wildly enjoyable, Tennessee may never be "Home Sweet Home".


But along with my husband, who has healed more wounds than I ever imagined, I plan on making it the best "Home New Home" that it can be.