“Find Your Way”
The words on the sign were more than just a store advertisement to me.
I read the statement while I was headed into a department store to buy my children clothes to start not only a new school year, but a new school year in a new school in a new city.
I guess in a sense the city isn’t completely new.
In fact, as far as cities go, it is probably the oldest one my heart knows personally–the place where I grew up. My family is moving back to be closer to family–and while that is exciting on some levels, it is also a reminder to me of something I’ve learned throughout my life, especially after moving a few times:
Change is hard. Transitions are hard.
The evidence of my family’s transition is all around me.
I am writing this very post on the floor of a mostly empty room–all the furniture is cleared out and the walls are almost bare. What remains are piles of clothes to be packed into suitcases for a family trip and laundry baskets filled with the rest of the clothes our family owns.
The rest of our house looks a lot the same way. Upstairs, we have one room that is completely empty and another that has a stack of beds so other rooms can be cleaned and painted–erasing the physical evidence of our seven years living here. The basement is a construction zone, the garage is piled with boxes both packed and waiting to be packed, and the main living areas are pared down to the barest essentials of living.
Transition, change and moving really force a taking stock of both external and internal life–and that’s what I’ve been doing in an intense way over the course of the last month.
I strive to keep our family’s inventory low when it comes to possessions. I regularly pare down and declutter and do my best to rid our house of too much stuff that can easily weigh us down. My four kids can entertain themselves for hours with paper and markers, legos and even just cardboard and tape. I watch their creativity unfold and I am reminded that it really doesn’t take much for kids to be productive and content.
Yet, even with that goal of keeping home inventory relatively low, in the past few weeks, I have thrown away, given away, recycled and donated a whole lot of “extra” when it comes to what we have in our house.
Taking a vacation in the midst of a move adds extra revelation about life’s layers–the most essential things are going with us in the van, the less essential things are staying behind in the house, and a storage unit holds the rest of what we own–stuff that I wonder if I will even unbox once the dust settles on the move.
Our summer transiency has revealed those layers in the inner things, too. I am asking myself:
What do I keep and what do I leave behind? What do I need to repair and rebuild in my heart and soul?
The connection between outer and inner life becomes so apparent in times of upheaval like a move. A store advertisement becomes more than words, but a real “sign”– not necessarily telling me what to do– but speaking to the reality of what I am doing.
In the midst of this transition, I need to “find my way”, not only externally, but internally.
As I’ve sifted and sorted, torn and paired down in the hazy dust of a construction zone that my home and heart have been the last few weeks (and maybe even longer, if I’m honest), “find your way” feels like an invitation back home, not just to a city where I once lived, but back to a way of being, moving and processing in the world that feels authentic to who I am on a deep level.
Write now, says my heart, as it tries to make it’s way back home. Time to see where that leads…
