I Cried All the Way to Our Honeymoon

It has been almost 14 years and I still remember how it went down; me in my "going away outfit" sitting in the passenger seat doing the ugly cry. My husband of less then 24 hours driving us to Dallas to catch our airplane that would take us to our honeymoon. I cried the.entire.way. I can't imagine what my poor, barely 21 year old husband, thought he had gotten himself into. {sidenote: just asked the hubs and he has no recollection of this event, so I guess it's all good!}

 It happened again two weeks before we had our first son, and then right before our second son was to be born. This kinda sadness that overcomes me. It is not that I am in anyway wanting to un-do the new wonderfulness to come, my mind just grieves the end of a season, a really good season of life.

So, here I stand tonight in my laundry room folding clothes, and that old weird familiar feeling starts to come over me again. But now I am 34 and not the 20 year old newly wed....and I recognize these feeling for what they are and it doesn't freak me out quite so much.

This time we are 39 days out from moving to the other side of the world. We have been anticipating this adventure for awhile now. Feel such peace in being right where God wants us. We've experienced adrenaline rushes, miracles, amazing provisions, coupled with stress and feelings of being utterly overwhelmed. Our crate left earlier this week with all our earthly treasures. The rest of our stuff is finding  new homes via Craigslist and garage sales. Our house went on the market yesterday....and we've had 4 showings in the last 24 hours. And I recognize that I am starting to grieve. It always sneaks up on me when I least expect it.

I am going to miss this house. The house my husband grew up in. The house we dated in. The house we moved into when baby #1 was just a month old. The house we put our blood, sweat and money into as we made it our own. The house we made memories in as a family.

But one thing nice about getting older is I can let myself grieve the end of an era.  I don't panic like I did years ago and think, "oh no, I must have picked the wrong college!" or "am I marrying the right guy?" I don't equate these feelings of sadness as equaling that we are on the wrong path.  I know that the next season is going to be different, lots of changes are going to happen, but it is going to be good. And someday down the road, I will look back on this new adventure that we are about to embark on and I will feel nostalgic, I will feel home.