I love the beach, I mean I really love the beach and ocean. To the point that I'm a certified SCUBA diver and have dove in places all over, including diving with sharks off the coast of Belize to places in Mexico and the Cayman Islands. With the exception of the Caribbean waters the Gulf is my favorite beach area. We've talked and dreamed for years about moving there. I mean who doesn't vacation at the beach and think, boy, wouldn't it be great to live here?! So with the thought that one day I want to move there I go on about my life.
And I love my life! I love where I live, the perfect small town within driving distance of Atlanta and less than 20 miles from the largest shopping mall in the Southeast. A job that I've had going on 6 years that is family friendly, flexible, and offers me a creative outlet getting to create posters, bulletins, flyers as well as working in the Children and Student departments. I have great coworkers, a short commute and lots of benefits. The kids are settled into their schools and doing well. We moved into a gorgeous cape cod (always my dream style house) about 5 mths ago (go ahead and laugh, yes, I was upset about that move too and now here I am loving this house!) and I've just finished decorating the inside to a warm, inviting and cozy place and just started creating gardens and other landscape work outside. I volunteer with a Celebrate Recovery group, am working with our local police department on getting a Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association up and running and making new friends at the church we just started going to a couple of months ago. I also have friends here whom I dearly love. You know, the kind you know you can call in the middle of the night if you really needed too. Basically I'm very happy and content with my current life.
When out of the blue my husband is offered a job. It is a with a good company that he used to work with years ago in our hometown, before we moved up here. And the branch of the company that is offering him the job is located in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. Ironically right in between Destin and Panama City Beach, the exact area we said we wanted to eventually live. While I should be jumping for joy at this chance to live in one of the most gorgeous areas of the country along one of the whitest stretches of sugar sand beaches, with some of the most beautiful blue-green waters, I'm not. Instead I'm in shock. Yes, I wanted this, but not now. But if not now, will we ever have this chance again? My husband, who thinks I should be ecstatic at this opportunity, is probably in shock at how upset I get.
But this means Ron will be moving on down there in the next couple of weeks. I'll be left here with the kids to finish the school year, pack, find a new job down there and try to figure out how to save enough money to cover moving expenses and find a place to live there. Knowing if I can't do it by July or so, then we will be here another year so as not to have to move the kids mid-school year. Which means Ron and I could be living in separate states for up to 13 months. So many thoughts, so many things that have to fall into place. The dream of the beach bum life quickly escalates into a mega internal storm. So strong that I can't eat and am battling massive migraines.
It dawns on me tonight that my kids are watching me to know how to react. How I respond will clue them in. Do I want them anxious or upset or do I want them excited and ready for one of the biggest adventures of their lives so far? Time to stop, breathe...and pray. (thanks to a friend who told me in no unnecessary terms to STOP and just breathe, another who reminded me to take things one day at a time and one who came by my work today just to tell me it would all be ok and hold me and let me leak out a few tears on her shoulder - see I told you I had awesome friends here!!) No, I have absolutely no idea how in the world all the details will come together to make this work. But God knows. He is the calmer of storms, both real and internal. "He calms the storm, So that its waves are still." Psalm 107:29 (NKJV).
So ahoy, matey! It's time to raise the sails and use the blowing winds to guide our family to where we need to go, instead of letting them blow and toss me about.
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