When last I wrote, I had just quit my job.  I knew I'd be moving, knew I'd be shelving my career, at least in its current form, but didn't know much more than that.   Now, I have three work days left.  Daniel and I just returned from a four-day trip to Nashville, Tennessee for house hunting and overall orientation.  It was a whirlwind.  We learned some things along the way.

1. This really is happening. Because the "mights" had started to pile up months ago, it was starting to get easier to say "we might be moving" or "my husband has been offered a job that would relocate us."  I had even started to say "I am quitting my job because my family is moving to Nashville."  But for some reason, until we were on the plane it didn't really seem real.  Spending the day with a realtor and looking at houses certainly sent it screeching home too.  Every morning in Nashville, as I often do in hotels, I woke up disoriented.  Once I remembered where I was, I had to remember why I was there.  Even though I've known it was coming, and even though it's a change we are mostly looking forward to and have chosen, it is still a lot to process.

2. We genuinely like Nashville. This is such a relief.  We had previously spent two rainy weekends in a much closer state looking in areas that just didn't work for us.  There were tears, because we had real reasons we wanted those places to work out and real signs it was clear they weren't going to. We were betting a lot on the Nashville area, having already initiated the practically irreversible process of moving toward a place we had never really been.  Imagine our relief when we found we like it there.  There was a lot to do, the people we met were genuine (not syrupy sweet), the unsweet tea was plentiful and good, great food (even foodie food) wasn't hard to find, and music was everywhere.  Fortunately, not just country music.

3. There might be a tiny Southern girl inside me. About an hour after we landed, I was flipping through radio stations in the car, belting out country songs I had forgotten I knew the words to (in a somewhat convincing Southern drawl).  Daniel groaned, "I knew it was going to happen; I just didn't think it would be so soon!'  By the end of the weekend I heard my diphthongs dropping (that is, "I love it" started sounding more like "Ahh luhhv it").  I am not yet okay with this phenomenon; however, if I ever do embrace it, I like to think the tiny Southern girl inside me is something like Kristin Chenoweth, but even tinier.  Who knows, maybe we'll be very happy together.

4. At least for now, our life is not conducive to urban living. This was a tough one.  Though we had a day full of showings scheduled with a realtor for Friday, Thursday we ventured out to check out some Craigslist finds of our own.  This was fruitful, but not like you'd think.  The one and only appealing listing we found in a desirable downtown neighborhood was first.  We were hopeful.  Until the owner answered the door.

"I can't remember if I told you about Ron over the phone," she said, "but he lives on the back of the house."  I knew we couldn't leave right away, but I wanted to.  The house had wonderful, 85-year-old bones, but the renovations she kept pointing out were far too minor to make much of an impact.  And then there was the issue of Ron, which she kept bringing up.  "I don't rent this space," she said, pointing to a 4-foot square between two locked doors, "because it's a sound buffer for Ron.  Though Ron is very quiet.  He's an artist."  We had made a game plan in the car for how we would keep all the listings straight in our mind; I had entered the house with my camera in hand.  At this point, I quietly slid it in my purse. 

Outside on the ramshackle deck, the owner gestured to the parking out back, where Ron's El Camino was parked, though he was out of town.  And finally, as she mentioned what would and would not be repaired in the backyard, she pointed to the once-white, now peeling picket fence.  "We are not going to paint the fence," she said resolutely, "because Ron hates stark-white paint."  On the spreadsheet Daniel had prepared for note taking I started to write "run-down," but eventually just wrote RON.  Enough said.  

We determined that this experience was good for us.  The rest of our showings were suburban, either in Nashville or just outside, in Franklin.  We need a bit of a yard, safe walking paths, playgrounds, and a pool for our little ones.  We need to feel safe when Daniel is frequently gone.  And as we have learned over the past couple years, though much to our dismay, city living is not likely to provide those things the way we need it to.  I think we are still city people at heart.  But we are putting that aside and making decisions for the girls who hold much larger pieces of our hearts.  

The first few times we have visited our next neighborhood, I have hyperventilated as we approached it.  Though Tennessee has much more open space than I am accustomed to, it seems they like to build their subdivisions large and tight.  Homes are very close together.  I know I lived in a rowhome for five years, but this is different.  Once I am in the neighborhood and in the house, I relax and think of all the ways my children are going to thrive in this environment-- of all the ways I  am going to thrive with the glorious fridge I am about to have.  But it is an adjustment.

5. This is going to be even harder than we thought. I have always been a working mother, or I should say, a mother who worked a full-time job away from home.  I have always been torn over this.  I still am. But now I am making a much-wanted transition to staying home.  And while I welcome it and embrace this time, it's still a transition.  Still a change.  Still hard.  

Daniel is starting a new job in an entirely new place.  He will be wonderful.  But for him, it is still hard.

And most of all, we are moving from all my family and from much of Daniel's.  Farther than we've ever been.  Away from our friends, our church, our help, our comfort.  And it will be an adventure, and it will be good for us, and there will be much good that comes out of it.  We are grateful for all of it. But, man, is it hard.

First, an apology: To anyone who read the last post and got scared that something big was wrong, I am sorry!  A beloved and frightened friend just accused me of being a drama queen for writing it, which is probably about right.  I just couldn't write the whole thing until it was in the past (if only the very recent past).  I will soon return to my more level-headed self.  Soon.

I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.  I always knew I wanted to be a wife and a mother, but I never really considered the parameters.  I just didn’t give it any thought and figured I’d know when the time came.

When the time did come, it became evident to me that a little foresight would have gone a long way.  But I was conflicted, and I wrestled with it loudly and often.  I worried over my identity. I lamented my lack of balance. I feared my life would never change.  Then I was concerned that if it did, I’d regret it.

I felt I was never fully anywhere.  I couldn’t honestly say I only worked because I had to because there have always been aspects I really enjoyed: I have always liked making money, contributing to a team, being an expert at something, interacting in a professional setting, and getting up and putting on big girl clothes and heels.  I still do.

But whereas I thought getting up and leaving my babies for 10 or more hours per day would get easier as they grew, it has not.  It has gotten progressively harder.  For the last couple years, we have been working toward the time when we might have options.  I wasn’t sure what I would choose, just that I wanted to have a choice.

A few months ago I started a consulting firm that I can grow at my own pace.  We have been looking forward to a series of dates that have scaled back my work and that, eventually, would end my day job.  It never seemed to come soon enough.

And then, Daniel got an offer-- a ridiculous and generous offer.  We planned to take it, until it seemed there may be another one.  It's not yet resolved, but we are moving.  We don’t know where, though it is most certainly somewhere south of here. We hope to have an answer in the next couple days.

Despite this uncertainty, I quit my job today.  I have been a nervous wreck, because it’s not like I just quit a job to start another one.  I quit my job to stay home with my children.  To devote more time to being the mother I want to be.

And before I say any more, please really hear what I’m saying: I don’t think there is one right answer for everyone.  I wholeheartedly don’t.  There is no judgment in this decision, no feeling that everyone should someday come to this place.  What there is: 100% certainty that this is the right decision for me and my family. 

Today I felt nervous about letting people down. In a month, when I actually leave, I will be sad to say good-bye to a team I’ve known for five years, to a company that has been wonderful to me.  I know there will come a day in the not-so-distant future when I long to get up and put on a cute dress and sit at a desk all day where all I’m expected to do is work and I can go to the bathroom (alone) whenever I please, and then they’ll pay me. I am undoubtedly going to miss the grownups.  But I made a huge step today, I have thoroughly counted the cost, and I have no regrets.

One morning last week as I prepared to leave for work, Mirabella said, “I don’t want to you to go to work.”

“I know,” I said.  “What if, pretty soon, I didn’t have to?  What if I could stay home?”

Mirabella cocked her head to the side, “For how many days?  Fifty-five?”

“Every day,” I replied.

“MORE than fifty-five days?  I think that would be GREAT.  When can we do that, Mom?”

It had never even occurred to her that it could be different than it’s always been.  And I found great comfort in that.  I have always consoled myself that my children know only me, that they do not compare me to other moms or wish things were different.  They simply need my best.  For the last four years, I can confidently say I have given that to them.  And now I am excited, nervous and hopeful as I look toward a very different-looking future.

But I'll say to you what I said to Daniel: In this brave new world, if you see me start to wear yoga pants every day, it's time for an intervention. I mean it.

It is now in the moments before.  I have a secret only a few people know.  It's the kind of secret where everything is fine until the minute it's told. It can't be taken back. It will cause emotional reactions; it will lead to questions; it is the catalyst for major change.  

But for now, it's just a secret.  The kind that eats away at its keeper.  Leaves her restless and wide-eyed when she should be sleeping, distracted when she should be focused, melancholy when she should be joyful.  Encites whispers on the phone, closed-door conversations and eye contact avoidance. 

So with bags under my eyes, knots in my stomach, and a rattle in my throat, I prepare to change the course of my adult life.  Ready, go.

In the midst of turmoil, stress or uncertainty (or in the case of their convergence), lately I'm finding the immeasurable value of hitting pause. Pulling away and focusing elsewhere, even if it means pretending just to avoid focusing on the problem. 

Recently we had a wonderful visit at the end of a horrible week. Daniel's brother Shawn, his fiancee Amy and her two boys came to spend some of their spring break with us. We spent two eventful, perfect days at a crowded breakfast table, on the harbor, around a bonfire, in the blooming yard, at the aquarium, on a speed boat and at a pirate festival. Our girls are taken with their very first cousins and the boys, though much older, couldn't be sweeter or more considerate of them. When they all left a night early the kids were disappointed and the grown-ups were exhausted. Daniel and I found ourselves with unexpected time.  I cooked a real dinner and we ate after the kids went to bed and shared a bottle of sangria. PAUSE. We talked. He had been away for two weeks prior and would be away again the following week.  It was nice to be the only two people in the room.

The next night we went on a previously scheduled (if ill-timed) double date with my brother and sister-in-law to see one of our favorite bands, Needtobreathe, in concert. Daniel had a 6:00 flight the next morning, and the show didn't start until 9:30 an hour away. PAUSE. But we were transported-- we danced and sang.  We forgot.  At least for an hour and a half.

And then on a hectic Tuesday, I had to take Emerie to her first dental appointment to investigate an injury from the week before. I had a day of big meetings ahead of me, and there was no avoiding being late. As we left the office I said, "Why don't we get some breakfast?"

Emerie said, "Dat sound wike a GOOD IDEA, Mama!" I took her to a coffee shop and she was a perfect doll.  It was a moment in time. We sat in the corner and I drank coffee and shared my bagel sandwich while she drank apple juice and ate an enormous lemon muffin. She refused to sit in a high chair and sat across from me leaning on her still pudgy elbows. "So, Mama," she kept saying, as a conversation starter. It was so precious, and somehow I was so aware of it in the moment that my heart hurt; my eyes hurt from trying to memorize it.

A man walked in with his grade-school daughter. They sat nearby and I could feel him watching us as we talked.  As he left he turned and said, "She's going to keep you company for a long time." I choked up when he said it, and I just did again.

I don't always see the beauty in the every day.  Most moments don't shout significance.  But in all of these cases it was like I packed them up and held them close, wore them under my clothes or tucked in my pocket.  The morning with Emerie carried me through  the rest of my whirlwind day, and it got me thinking. It's not about what big life issues are figured and what aren't, what's the way we want it and what isn't.  Lately more than ever, I am recognizing the value of the lowercase moments that happen in between.