two months ago we were deep in the throes of packing up our house in michigan. this saturday will mark eight weeks that we have been living here.
this move has not been easy for me. i was very ready and excited to move, and we were both in agreement that this was the next step for our future...but it has still been hard. at first, i felt completely lost and disoriented. then after we were here for a week, jeremy started his program, and i felt so lonely and so bored all day. i didn't know one person in this entire city...there were no other moms to spend time with, no friends to spend part of the day with, and no community here to help us get through this transition.
i would drop jeremy off at the hospital for the day and watch as all the professionals walked into work chatting with their co-workers. i envied them because they belonged to something and they had a purpose, and i felt like i wasn't part of anything. i felt discontent, moody, irritable, frustrated, exhausted, and not like myself. in all of this, i have certainly thrown more than my share of tantrums and pity parties.
i found myself desperately searching the internet for moms groups and any way that i could possibly find some friends. the kids and i found ourselves at the zoo, children's museum, and library story time. i soaked up any little conversation i had with another mom...anything that made me feel like i connected with another person and like i belonged here. it was pretty sad.
well...eight weeks in and we have made several positive steps towards being a part of this community. the kids and i have had several get togethers with new friends and we have started going to a weekly mom's group. i have several new friends numbers programmed into my phone, we have attended the same church three weeks in a row, and we actually ran into someone we knew from church when we were out and about last week.
it has taken a lot to get here. it's pretty out of my comfort zone to show up to a stranger's house and spend a morning with several other moms i have never met. driving through a completely unfamiliar city to have a playdate with a new friend is not easy. finding a random mom's group online and going to one of their meetings only to feel very uncomfortable and not very welcomed is disappointing and frustrating.
thankfully, my experiences have been more positive than negative. i have been surprised at how easy it has been for me to jump into new friendships and situations. i have also been surprised at how open our new friends have been to welcoming us into their lives and city.
i still don't feel at home here and it is still hard. i think of simple things from our old life and feel twinges of homesickness...the natural light coming in the windows of our old house, our little neighborhood health food store that i loved, driving down our street and pulling into our driveway, driving out to the farm to pick up our milk, mornings with the kids at the botanical gardens, evening walks by the lake, and knowing my way around. even more so, faces of dear friends we left behind.
since we moved, there have been many hard days...times of feeling overwhelmed at the newness and unfamiliarity of this place, tears shed at what was left behind and given up for this. good mornings spent with new friends but then finding myself missing friends who already know me and who are so comfortable to be with. days of feeling like we were on our way to thriving in this place, and then days that felt completely opposite. and the reality is that it is much easier and more fun to be a full time mom when you are surrounded by friends.
the good news is that it seems that the good days (or moments!) now outnumber the bad. i think i am on my way to finding a place here. it is going to take more work, more experiences outside my comfort zone, more energy and time. i know that there will be more tears and more hard days...i am human and this is hard.
but...we are getting there. we are slowly finding our people and our places. we are making memories here.
one day at a time.
