I dug in, dug deep, and mined the experience of my new environs for all it was worth. Nuggets of hope tumbled from my psyche. I made myself believe in our new home to the point that I really did believe. I exposed my faith gone dormant under layers of bravado and over-stated self-sufficiency. Unearthed, ironically in the Bible Belt, this gem of hope reflected truths about myself long unseen but which gleamed in the humid, hot breath of Georgia. My children dug too, to their very core, raw material forged into wills of iron and emotions malleable as tin. We spoke about this new us, the individuals we were evolving into, the born-agains we aspired to become. We strove for buoyancy. We would not sink. Our hearts were not made of stone. They were just tender.
Dinner with family. Sam is feeling sad. My mom is worried about him. She reaches out to him.
Nana: I know it’s hard. It’s like a death. You’re mourning for San Francisco and home. You’ll never see that view off the deck again. You’ll never go to that school again. You’ll never swim in that pool again. You’ll never hang out with your friends in the same way again. You’ll never eat at your favorite sushi restaurant again. It’s like death.”
Sam (smiling as if his grandmother resembles Rasputin): “Thanks, Nana. I feel so much better.”
Nana: “I’m so glad.”
A year has passed and my Georgia house is for sale. We will be back in the Bay Area in time to begin the new school year. I have no regrets. My children have learned that how we show up for challenges defines us, that they are tougher and more empathetic for having been uprooted from all they had known. My husband and I have discovered we can stomach most anything. What we gave up may have cost us more than we had imagined, but what matters is that we shared the cost. It gave us a common challenge and ultimately a shared purpose. We learned to value what we can’t live without, what feeds our soul. Oh, waiter, one more helping of high cost of living, please. Westward, home.
