When I was 14, my family moved from the east coast to the west coast.
We drove from Virginia to Utah and then to Washington. For the first two whole days of the trip, I laid on the back seat of our white Plymouth van and sobbed.
Virginia had become my home. For an Army brat to live in one state for seven years is something of a miracle. I had memorized the deep blue color of a sunny summer sky because all you could do in that humidity was lie on your back in a hammock in the yard. I looked forward to the explosion of color that would come on the trees every fall and the sound of the crispy, crunchy leaves under my feet on my walks to school. I was not surprised when two feet of snow shut down the Nation's Capital for a week. My heart was enthralled every spring when the dogwoods would bloom.
I didn't know what to expect out of Washington except rain.
After we got there, so many people welcomed me. I had friends instantly who were so nice, many of whom I am lucky enough to still be friends with today. Ironically, people were friendlier when I moved there than they had been when I first moved to DC. Even so, I still felt very lonely.
We had been living in Washington for a few months when my mother came in to my room after dinner one night. I had been crying and I'm sure she had heard me. I told her I still missed my friends from Virginia, like there was a hole in my heart. But I felt bad about being so sad for so long. I was having such a hard time being cheerful and having faith, which were two things that I was raised to do. I just could not let go like I had every other time we had moved.
So she told me something I never expected to hear. She told me not to be so hard on myself. She told me that we are not expected to instantly recover from life's disappointments. She said sometimes things are hard and we should just let them be hard.
I have to tell you that I still miss Virginia. I think that I left my childhood there. And haven't been back since.
2 comments:
I can't imagine how hard it must be to move around so much. I grew up in the house my mother grew up in! And I was EXTREMELY attached to friends, routines, old haunts, and the like (still am...which is probably why the Lord has arranged for us to move 6 times in 7 years!). What a wonderful and wise mom you have, to not say "Buck up, kid!" Life is hard, and grief is a natural part of it. And it's right to mourn for a little while--that's how your heart heals. I myself cried all the way to the airport on the last day of my last trip to Portland. We drove down I-5 just as the sun was rising, and I saw the sky turn pink and salmon and yellow, and tiny lights start to illuminate Portland's waterfront, and clouds streak the sky, and IT WAS NOT FAIR. I love the Northwest more than any other place in the world (Paris included! Though it's a close second!). It hurts me to go back "home" to Utah, which I'm not sure will ever feel truly like home.
Karl was born & raised in Baltimore, then moved to Sacramento when he was 9 (and then to the Roseville area at 14). And while he gets a bit annoyed at my undying loyalty to Portland, he says he envies my attachment to my hometown. There are ghosts of me around every corner--and so many memories to savor. Childhood has such strong associations with the place where it unfolded. It would be so cool to have a chance to go home again and see if you can find Julie of yesteryear still there.
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