Sometimes, usually while washing dishes for the third time in a day after baking four loaves of bread & spending an hour flipping tortillas, I find myself thinking, "What am I doing out here?"
I find myself daydreaming taking a drive back home in Washington. I imagine loading up my car (i love my car) and going on a trip to visit my grandparents. I imagine sneaking off with Josh to the movies while my mom watches the kids for us. I imagine the boys and I at the Oregon Zoo, the damp cold seeping into our bones while we soak in the green of trees & foliage that surround every exhibit.
I find myself daydreaming taking a drive back home in Washington. I imagine loading up my car (i love my car) and going on a trip to visit my grandparents. I imagine sneaking off with Josh to the movies while my mom watches the kids for us. I imagine the boys and I at the Oregon Zoo, the damp cold seeping into our bones while we soak in the green of trees & foliage that surround every exhibit.
But the truth is, we aren't going back.
(Aside from summer vacation, of course!)
(Aside from summer vacation, of course!)
Alaska is our home now.
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It scares me to not know for certain what the future holds. I am one of a few people who was totally comfortable with the cookie-cutter life I had mapped out since forever, including getting married, having children, buying a house and someday dying in Vancouver, the place I was born. But God had different plans for me.
"Do not go where the path may lead;
go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
And so it is that I find myself and my three children in the middle of nowhere along the Yukon River, following where my husband's career may lead.
... and I'm so glad your life's journey took you to Alaska because I love the images and anecdotes of your family's life there.
ReplyDeleteDonna
I, too, find myself across the country, far from my family and where I thought I would live forever. I, too, am allowing my husband to follow his dreams and be a professor at an Ivy League university. I, too, stayed home to raise our child and put my professional career on the shelf.
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't imagine my life any different. It was the best decision we ever made, and we made it together. It's comforting to know there are other women who are making and have made a similar choice for their families.
Thank you for continually sharing your life adventure with us.
It's always an adventure, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteSometimes I feel like I'm just along for the ride but, truthfully, I sort of love the unknown part of this life.
Maybe someday we will meet up in Alaska? You never know!
So glad that you are settled back in at "home" though. It's so beautiful there!
I feel that as long as you follow your heart, you'll be happy. If your heart is happy in Alaska, I'm good with that. If in three years Josh gets bored, or feels a calling, and you're ready for something new, that's good, too. I'm reading that you're feeling content, and that's comforting. It would be sad (awful, really) if the entire time you were in Marshall you were counting down until you came "home." Home is wherever you make it, you've proved that. I love you, and you have my support no matter where you go, or how many plane rides it takes to get to you! But I'll still cry every time we say hello and goodbye on your trips, and that is just that! Haha. HUGS!
ReplyDelete