We're Not Moving

I'm having a hard time. There's a lot going on in this jumbled mind of mine, mostly about moving (and not moving) and what that means about us and what kind of people we are.

As I've mentioned before, I always thought that I was adventerous person. Even now I have a hard time reconciling who I wish I was with who I probably really am. (See that? I can't even say 'who I am', I have to add the 'probably' in there.)

You see, I always wanted to be someone spontaneous, a world traveler. A make-a-quick-decision-and-hop-on-a-plan and free-spririted hippy and go-with-the-flow and all of the above and everything. But that's really not who I am. The farthest I moved was five hours away when I went away to college. When my husband and I got married we talked about living "somewhere else" (another state) for a period of time and then I got pregnant and we decided it would be too hard and too complicated.

And that's just it. I wonder if we ever would have really moved away, because we both seem to be comfortable homebodies. As much as we like the IDEA of moving or being somewhere else, we don't seem to be willing to try the reality of it all.

I love my life. I love that I have my two sweet girls, and our cozy home. I love that we are close to family and our girls are growing up knowing their cousins and grandparents. But sometimes I am still sad. I am sad that Adam and I are not different people. And I know that's a horrible thing to admit to, and it's something I desperately need to work on. But it's how I feel. And it depresses me sometimes, that we're not those go-with-the-flow and move-where-the-wind-takes-us type people.

It's asking a lot of my husband for me to want him, the major bread winner, the person who would most be affected career wise, to look for another job in another location, especially when he's perfectly happy where he is right now. Yet I can't help wishing. Wishing that we were both brave enough to take a leap. Both of us want to TRY something enough to give it trial run.

(Except I'm not really that brave. Maybe part of the reason I can feel so strongly about it is because I know he won't ever call me on it.)

But, along with us not being "trial run" kind of people (he's the type of person to want to commit to something and not go into it with a potential "temporary basis" frame of mind), we also aren't a move anywhere (but perhaps another house in the Twin Cities) type of people. Especially now that we have kids, we are even less flexible and less inclined to try something new because it would mean uprooting the kids (and then potentially uprooting them again if it didn't work out.)

And that's the other thing. How can I ask my husband to take a job somewhere else, something he might even be too keen on doing when nothing is certain? What if he isn't happy? What if the job fell through or something happened or it meant his career not turning out as well as it could if we stayed here?

And don't get me started on where is it best to raise kids. (Because Minnesota has apparently gotten on all these "best" lists from different magazines when it comes to kids and families and places to live.)

And all of this hemming and hawing is pretty much worthless because we just aren't going to move. We're just not those people. And that's maybe why I've been having such a hard time with it all? Because I know that we aren't those people but I want us to be? I want it to at least be a real possibility. I'm not sure why it feels so important to me, especially now. Has the Minnesota winter really gotten to me that horribly? Was San Diego really that wonderful?

I'm afraid to even utter the words, but maybe a warm weather vacation during a Minnesota winter is a bad idea, at least for me. I hope that when spring eventually arrives my negative attitude will melt with the snow. But whether it's about moving or not, reconciling who I thought I was (or who I wanted to be) can be tough with who I actually am. Somehow I've got to learn to embrace it all and be content with today.

(And I promise I'll try to lift this funk long enough for a post with photos from vacation.)

xoxo,
Christine