Last Thursday, me and Taylor began planning our two year anniversary summer vacation. We picked out dates, and began day dreaming about the places we wanted to travel to. (A few on the list are Arkansas, Missouri, Chicago….) We spent all afternoon and evening excitedly planning out a vacation, which easily transitioned into a conversation about our plans to move.
Taylor will be graduating in four days. We could not be further from having a plan laid out after graduation, but we have to move out of our apartment at the end of May. He is applying for teaching jobs in many different cities and states and continually looking for more. No plans, no solid job offers, no preferred places to live. Because of this, we let ourselves get carried away, last night, while we were talking about where we could live; what we do if he doesn’t get offered a teaching job, what would happen if we just picked up and left at the end of May…the possibilities were endless. The ideas ranged from moving five minutes away to five hours away…or further.
We sat in Starbucks for three hours talking about our near future.
I am very excited about moving. I’m ready for a new apartment, a new city, a new experience. I have been preparing for this chapter of our life ever since we married nearly two years ago.
Later that night, as I settled into bed, my mind began stirring all our plans around. Suddenly, the thought of leaving this small town behind wasn’t the greatest idea ever. Leaving this town means leaving much of my family behind. I started to cry.
Taylor and I are introverted and quiet. We kept to ourselves most of the time and found entertainment in the quiet trips to Starbucks or reading a good book. But now, all I could think about was leaving and what it meant to leave our families.
As I quietly buried my head in the blankets letting only a few tears fall, Taylor snuck into the bedroom and tried to surprise me. Upon realizing I was crying he calmly got into bed, wrapped his arms around me and let me sob into his shirt. After a few quiet and tender minutes, I composed myself enough to say “I just started thinking of leaving, and I got really sad.” Realizing, yet again, the emotion behind that sentence I began sobbing again in which Taylor softly said, “It’s okay, Alyssa…we don’t have to go on vacation.”
He was kidding of course. He knew what I meant. He also knew how to lighten the mood.
As scary as it is to leave our very first place, I know wherever life takes us will be a new adventure that I don’t want to miss out on. Sure, we may end up just moving across town for a temporary time until we decide, at the very least, what city we’d like to live in. And that’s ok. My tears may have been premature, but that’s ok, too.
I’m going to miss this first city, this first apartment. I’m going to miss our family. But I’m not going to let that cause us to miss out.
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