California

Life is funny. Two month ago, we told everyone that we were moving to California. We started purging things we wouldn't need, cleaned out closets and hired a handyman to fix things in our house so we could put it on the market. I found a bunch of "Orange County Moms" blogs to follow. We even told Mimi (because she started to overhear the word "move" in all of our conversations with everyone we would meet)-we promised her times at the beach and bunkbeds in her new room.

And we weren't premature in any of this. Ben interviewed and got the "unofficial" word that he was being hired. His boss told him to tell all of his employees he was leaving and that they were posting his job. It was on. We thought we'd be gone by January.

So we waited (but not for long! We thought).

Everywhere we go, the question is the same. "Any word on Ben's job yet?" Concerned friends want to know. Our family is waiting out on the limb with us. I can't even go to BSF without the greeters at the front door asking me. The answer is always the same. "No word yet! Can you believe it?! Crazy right?" Then we all talk about how frustrating that is. 

Through two or three different people, we keep hearing that they were scheduled to open X number of new branches in CA and that number's been cut in half. Ben got caught up in the shuffle.  We hear (again, through his boss' boss) that they loved Ben in CA and he's "tops on their list." So we've been thinking it's just a matter of time. We've pushed back our leave date a bit.

But last night Ben came home and our discouragement was at an all time low. After feeling like no one is really thinking of us in that big corporate world, no one even seems to remember that just a few short months ago we thought we were moving...we sat and tried to decipher (through the bits and pieces of information we had. Which is really nothing) what was really going on with our lives. 

We came to the conclusion that at this point, it doesn't sound like there's a job in CA. Could there be a possibility that something comes up and they remember Ben's name? Sure. But we're sick of putting our life on hold, when it doesn't seem like anyone else has any sense of urgency for us. It was a sad, sobering night. Suddenly the reality that we'd been living in flipped upside down. I thought I'd feel happy. Even though I was excited about the adventure of moving, I like where we live. I KNOW that there's no better place people like living than here. Our family is here. Our life is here. Our friends are here. CA is expensive, crowded (at least that's what I hear all day/every day from anyone I tell about our move). But it took a lot of energy to amp up and get excited about this change. So in the course of that, I got excited about an adventure. About being close to the beach and Disney and no snow! About my friend Allie Brownlee moving out there and being in the same state for the first time since college- it just seemed divinely arranged. Even our dear friends the Chavezes had a family trip already planned out for March (before we heard about our move) and we couldn't wait to have friends visit us out there.

Instead of relief, it's just confusing. It wasn't like Ben heard a "no," it's more like they just forgot about him, or like I said, don't have a place for him. But are they really expecting us just to wait around. Indefinitely? It seemed like it was time to stop living life on hold and make a decision for ourselves. So today when I march into BSF and the sweet ladies ask, I'm going to say, "nope, we dodged that move! We're not going." And blogging this is part of that too. After telling people for months, "we're moving!" it's time to say that we may just be around here.

So I'm going to hang up hooks in Mimi's room for her princess costumes and we're going to buy a Zoo membership again. I'm going to register her for preschool for next year. We're going to live our lives and not live them on hold.

It's hard to think about what God is doing through this. I know that He's here and is involved in our life. That He hasn't left and has a bigger purpose for all of this. But it's hard to know what (and of course, in the back of my head I think that the minute I publish this we will get a call that we're going). But I guess that that's life. And we will show grace as we roll with the punches and continue to trust that God is still steering our bike.



Can you tell what this is? Well it's a map of California, of course. Mimi made it. (Just another reminder of how confusing this whole process has been for her too.)