goin' to kansas city...

in 7 days and less than 12 hours, I'll be hitting the road and on my way to my new home in Kansas City, MO.
not the first place i ever thought i'd move to.
and this is not what i envisioned happening when i finally found a place to call home, and a family i could call my own, but here it is. and as sad as it makes me to leave, it feels right.

i hired a moving company for this move, which feels really good. it's gonna cost me a TON of money (though only slightly more than it would've cost to rent a moving truck), so my opinion may change once i have to start paying off that bill, but for now, knowing that i won't actually have to lift these boxes that i'm packing (or, more accurately: thinking about packing) is an amazing feeling. highly recommended, if you can afford it.




this post, though, isn't going to be about the merits of hiring a moving company vs. self-service moves. this post is about home.
i wrote this in april of 2008, but it's still relevant today.

home is a lot of things. home is something you’re born into. home is something you find. home is something you stumble upon. home is always inside you. home is something you create and cultivate. home is the soil you till, and the act of tilling the soil. it’s a noun, and adjective, and a verb.
my sense of home is fragmented.
the wounded part of me fears it, knows, quite well, the danger of it. can feel only the lack of safety. it hates the idea of home and wants only to escape it. … home, for that piece of my self, is a simple, large black circle. a trap. a seemingly embracing, friendly shape, with ominous darkness filling the inside, entirely.
but there are other parts, too.
…
there’s the part that has found a home. one that’s everything a home should be – a safe physical location, relative financial security, a town and region that i love, and a huge community of women who truly care for and love me. a family, chosen/found/cultivated, that’s actually centered around real love and compassion. a family of mothers, sisters, friends. none related by blood. all related by heart.
family means love.
home is where your family is. home is where your heart finds its fullness. where your heart is at its fullest, overflowing with love. home is a (physical, emotional) dwelling, bursting at the seams with real love.

it's terrifying to me to leave that home, now that i've finally found it. this nest i've built is quite comfortable, and it's going to be quite uncomfortable to leave it behind.
but a very wise friend told me this:
"you didn't build this nest to stay curled up in it your whole life. you built it so you'll have something to come home to."

and, as always, she's right.
i look forward to coming back home. now that i've got somewhere to come home to.