I Moved… and Moved Back

Over two months ago I packed my little car to the brim with my belongings, and roadtripped with a beloved 3,000 miles, catching many a landmark and animal crossing in between.

It was my first roadtrip to the West coast, jam-packed with activities like hiking, horseback riding in a national park, visiting sacred sites, and the like. An exhilarating, albeit exhausting trip (I may have broke down sobbing multiple times, but more on that later) that I will no doubt be dripping with inspiration from for the rest of my life.

I was looking forward to the end of the exhaustion. The schedule and budget was tight, so most nights were spent sleeping in the car. I hardly remember driving through the whole state of Colorado, fatigue combined with my anxiety about cliff driving* has made the memories fuzzy.

*Florida is FLAT.

I also recall being in the middle-of-nowhere South Dakota, in pitch black darkness, having to swerve to avoid hitting deer bolting out in front of the car. Passing by multiple cars that were broke down, each having met a deer on bad terms, did not lessen my anxiety… Even as a longterm driver, this was new to me.

Funny how my most anxious moments were not encountering the bison and elk at Yellowstone!

If you want to catch the wildlife at Yellowstone, do what we did: sleep outside the entrance at night. When you wake up and drive through, all of the animals will be stirring.

Looking forward to relief, after over a week on the road we got to the apartment and slept. I woke up to needing to start my job right away, a full day on my feet. There was little rest.

I stayed three weeks before deciding to move back.

Wrong Reasons

I jumped into moving to Seattle for the wrong reasons. I thought I was missing something. I thought I needed to learn from people who had the thing I was “missing.”

Having not traveled much, my criticism of my hometown had been building for some time, but when faced with the reality of city-living, I realized the value of what I had given up. From the trip I’d learned that the places I were drawn to were not the cities, but the wide open spaces and farms. I’ve been devouring information on homesteading, of all things, and fantasizing about the self-sufficiency that could be attained by growing my own food, making my own hygiene products, having solar panels, and the like.

Moving forced me to learn a hard lesson in priorities (again). I had prioritized my career pursuits over my relationships, all while forgetting that relationships are what give meaning to life. Career success without relationships to share them with are meaningless. Once I got to Seattle, there was a heavy “Now what?” looming over me. Now that I was surrounded my potential opportunities, I didn’t care to pursue them. My heart was back home.

It’s funny how sometimes we don’t feel good enough for the relationships we have, but in going out to “prove ourselves” we put that very thing we cherish most in jeopardy.

Make your decisions from a positive place of love, not fear. Instead of running away from what you don’t want, run towards what you do.

Deciding

Deciding to move back was messy. It hurt feelings.

The word decide comes from the root word “cide” which means to cut or kill. Making decisions literally translates to cutting off potential possibilities.

I spent a few days thinking about it, the decision to stay or go, logically, until I realized that I already knew what I wanted.

When you’re at a crossroads, your heart has already decided where to go. Simply ask yourself: Which one do you hope it is?

Or better yet, flip a coin for it. Your heart will rise or fall when the coin answers, and you’ll know what you truly want.

At the end of the day, you feel how you feel. It’s tempting to resist or hide these feelings to avoid hurting others, but lying to yourself and others just prolongs the hurt. Sometimes things don’t work, relationships or jobs aren’t a good fit, or you get what you want only to realize that you don’t want it anymore.

You have a choice: be true to your feelings, act on them, and feel authentic and inspired, or resist them and feel tired, along with a whole host of other negative emotions. The path of going after what you want is what leads to growth. Go with the flow like plants. It’s not hard to grow, it’s hard to delay and resist growth. Ask yourself: Which path leads to growth? and then don’t be afraid to cut out those possibilities that don’t serve you.

Once you get what you want, you learn from it, and then you may want something else. There’s only one way to find out.

Moving Back

Moving back required getting an oil change, new tires on the car, and another roadtrip across country, this time with another beloved.

I felt tremendously relieved the second I picked him up from the airport. We got home and didn’t have power for a week from the Hurricane Irma fallout, and it didn’t bother us one bit.

I am relieved to be back home. It took moving 3,000 miles away for me to realize that home wasn’t where I was, but who I was with.