If you can believe it, there is a romance in moving. Not in the piles of flat boxes that require tape and patience, not in the toddler who steals the tape and tests the patience, not in the prehistoric-looking creatures we refer to as insects unearthed in all the commotion and disruption of their hiding places, and certainly not in the 3 month old baby waking up if you even look at the tape gun. No amount of Luther Vandross or John Legend could make any of that stuff romantic.
About a million and one things happened in our family in 2017 and second only to having another baby, the biggest event in our lives was moving back to North Carolina. I first moved to North Carolina when I was 17 to go to college, where I met Matthew, an NC native. We lived here for the first two years of our marriage before Adulthood sent us to Atlanta for Matthew’s job. Four years and two kids later, Adulthood has sent us right back.
It’s a funny thing, Adulthood. She (oh come on, like Adulthood would really be a guy) makes you go to school to get the job and get you comfortable and whispers in your ear, “Hey, it’s time to have a kid” and then you do and you’re completely uncomfortable until one day you get the hang of it and she whispers again, “Hey, it’s time to have a kid” and then you do and it’s impossible and then she screams, “Hey, go back to school!” so then you do and you’re a student with two kids and no job and Adulthood abruptly disappears and it’s just little you making big decisions and driving a large truck full of everything you own across multiple state lines.
Adulthood’s tricks aside, we’re happy to have returned to a place we love so dearly and made so many memories. Everywhere we went as a couple, we now go as a foursome. It’s not often that you get to live two different lives in the same wonderful place. It’s not often that you get a new start that’s fresh but familiar, that takes you away from what you know but brings you closer to home. We get to tread new paths while retracing our steps, making a more permanent mark so we’ll never lose our way no matter how far we go. And none of it is a trick but the most remarkable gift you didn’t know you could give yourself.
And there it is. That’s the romance.
(Left: Babies. Right: Babies.)