Where to start..

A friend of mine posted this image on Pinterest a few weeks ago and it just struck me. I look at it almost daily and try to remind myself of it when I feel discouraged.

I'm good at the "use what you have" part, very good at it in fact. I do what I can too, it's the part about starting where I am that keeps hanging me up.

Nine and a half years ago my husband was offered a job promotion that brought us halfway across the country, closer to my family yet still 3+ hours away. At the time it seemed like a good choice, but we made the classic mistake of not researching the area or spending much time here before he accepted the position.

For about 9 years we have been trying to leave, that's a long time to be dissatisfied with the area you live in.

For the first few years I kept thinking that the longer we were here, the more friends we made, the more discovery we did, that it would eventually start to feel like Home. It has never felt like Home, and I'm tired. Tired of the constant feeling of needing to get out, worn out from all the transfers applied for and denied, and scared that while the kids are still young we will never have that sense of putting down roots.

So before this baby is born we are trying once more. It has been a few years since we attempted a move (aside from the time we were separated and the kids and I moved around quite a bit, but that's another story). As I type this my husband is on the last leg of his 3 flight journey home from an interview for a transfer back halfway across the country, to a brand new city for both of us, a fresh start, and hopefully a place we can really call Home.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up, I really am. After so many past disappointments it feels unwise to get excited about the prospects of a new city, a new life. Yet, they are up. I can't help it. It's exciting to search through Craigslist and look at the homes we might rent, and even more exciting to look at the real estate websites and see that yes, in this new city we can afford a nice house for our family, something we have not been able to do here.

Don't get me wrong; I know that there is no perfect city, town or place. That every place offers drawbacks of its own unique kind. More than that it will be very hard to move a time zone away from my family who mean so much to me, especially with a new baby on the way. But I believe in my heart that Home is not where we are, where we have been, that we can make a home in this new city if given the chance.

I desperately want to " Start where I am", and I might have to sort out a way to do that right where I am but I really am hoping for a fresh start; a new location....I'm really hoping for Home.