Opening Our Chutes

Walking. Taking tentative steps forward, foot following foot, hoping that we don't topple at the end.

I wish I was talking about the baby. But no.

Today, and for the next several months of days, we'll be preparing our home, our lives, and our hearts for starting over. Opportunities have dried up here, dried into nothing until we can crackle them in our hands like the leaves that fall off the trees outside. And we don't want to stay, here in the land where they worship concrete, where the sun is wonderful but the green patches are too small and have too much space between them.

We want more, for ourselves and our girl and any littles who will follow her. Life, rich and clear and full, like good running river water. And so we leave a land that has dried out, as many have done before us when the sun baked their patch of earth, and head into we know not what. But we go, flinging ourselves into a faith that we're not quite ready for, hoping the stories we've heard will carry us when our own hearts fail.

We've made our final plans (or as final as they can be over two months in advance). We know where we're going and how we're getting there. We know when the truck is coming and when we'll pack our things. We know where our girl will lay her head for this next season.

Beginning anew brings hope. Some days it feels like an adventure, like standing on the edge of that cliff I jumped off of when I was 21, and we know the chute will open and we'll land somewhere fresh and new.

But we say goodbye to so much, and so much is unknown . . . so much is unknown.


Linking with Emily today.