Vagabond

Have y’all wondered why I picked the highway photo as my main picture on my blog? I felt it captured my soul. I know that sounds a little intense, but sometimes life is! 🙂

As some of you may already know, Cody’s job has brought us to Washington, DC. We arrived here June 30th with the plan of returning tomorrow so that we would have a week to get ready for school. Yet, here I sit, in our apartment in Arlington, VA making sure I have everything ready for the kids checkups tomorrow so that they will be ready for school HERE. They will start Sept 4th at a new school.

Had anyone asked me June 1st what my summer looked like, I would have said, “Well, June is super busy, but July we will just enjoy being home.” I had plans of reorganizing my house, letting the kids run wild with the neighbors, lots of swimming, girls nights, trips to visit family that we miss during the school year, and just enjoying my normal life. Its obvious that once again, God had other things in store for us. With just a weeks notice we packed up our life in Eden for a summer trip with Cody to DC. After being together here for a short time, it was obvious that we needed to stay with him for his entire detail. Most of y’all are aware that we have been doing a long distance thing now for two years, so this opportunity for us to all be together is too good to pass up.

Being in this area has allowed us to do so many things already. We have visited lots of museums, traveled North to see old friends, learned ‘city life’, and stepped out once again into something scary! The awesomeness of this opportunity is not lost on me, yet I find myself struggling with it all the same. I miss my family in Texas, I miss my friends, I miss my church, and so much more.

Cody and I have lived by faith our entire life together. Seriously, it may sound crazy, but its true. When we were dating (2002) he had already been accepted into the Border Patrol, but he hadn’t received a date for the academy. We kept putting our future on hold until finally we just said to heck with it. We got engaged (2004) and about two months before our wedding (June 2005), wouldn’t you know, at that point they called him with a date. After waiting for 4 years, his date to leave was 3 weeks before our wedding!!! Luckily they gave him the option to go in with the next class. Only thing was that he would have to leave the day after we got married, but of coarse there was no hesitation. This is what he/we had been waiting for! We also found out that his choices for where he would be stationed after he graduated were no where near where he had selected. After a road trip to check out the stations, we decided Deming, NM would be where we would make our start. 8 hours away from everything we had ever known.

It seems like yesterday when we loaded up and headed West. We were babies, both of us were 22. We had no idea what was in store for us. The life lessons we have learned, the friends we have made, the places we have lived, the places we have seen, the family that grew, the opportunities that we have had, they are endless! So, why should this chapter be any different? You would think that I would be used to change. We have had so much of it in our life. To be honest, moving and making new friends and new starts doesn’t bother me at all! I feel like I have become good at it. I adapt pretty easily, but I think I am just tired. Tired of moves, tired of making new friends, tired of change. For some reason though, this is the life God gave me. I am very appreciative for the most part. I don’t know what I have done most days, to be blessed with such an amazing life full of adventures. BUT there is a part of me that longs to be still. To have a home. I know home is where the heart is…blah blah blah! Trust me, I know this well, I cling to this and my little family more than you can imagine, but to have a home and life that stays in one place for more than a couple years, what is that even like? To finally be ‘home’?

Right now, I have no idea what the future holds. If I said I was OK with that I would be lying. It is incredibly hard to live in limbo, to have no idea how long you will be some where, to have no idea what life will look like when this chapter is over. So, I will continue to trust in the Lord. He hasn’t let us down yet and he won’t. His plans are always better than mine. It just takes a second for me to adjust and let go. When we look back on our life and where all God has lead us, we can always see why we were supposed to be there. This phase will not be any different. I just have to cling tight to the one who gave me this life and continue to trust in Him.