I’m filled with deep emotions while sitting in church with a congregation we were a part of until we moved in November.
Emotions I don’t entirely understand.
I left here with a purpose. Somewhat broken after our experience remodeling the farmhouse, but purpose-filled and heading in a direction.
A direction that is no longer where I am headed—a direction I didn’t have the capacity to handle yet. Desires in the right place, capabilities not yet able.
And as I sit and worship among people I grew to love over the year we were here, I feel desirous to be with them again. To belong as I once did.
To navigate my time among them differently than I did before.
Maybe that’s not possible.
I’ve changed and learned significant things about myself since then.
So I’m filled with senses of longing to belong again, even if I don’t know what my path is anymore.
I’m comforted that I’ve made friends along the way—something incredibly challenging for me to do.
We tried to settle. We tried to put down roots to stay.
And maybe that’s the reason we had to have such purpose in moving (even though it’s now gone): we had started to grow roots, we had started to belong—something we’ve never really been willing, able, or successful in doing previously.
And maybe that’s why now I feel a desire to belong again, because these are people I love. They are people who welcomed me.
Can this happen again? Surely yes. It happened once, it happened again.
And, realistically, it will happen again and again, as many times as we end up moving.
And the pain of separation and the bittersweet of return are always worth the development of relationships along the way.