"The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal" - C.S. Lewis
As I write this our house sits nearly empty, a little fire going for the last time. The movers have taken everything away and we sit on our blow up mattress remembering back to our very first night in this house and then back even further to the past 4 and a half years here in a place we have come to love---Wisconsin.
Wasn't it just yesterday that we arrived here? Wasn't it just yesterday that I walked into my new job for the first time? Wasn't it just yesterday that we knew no one here? Wasn't it just yesterday that our girls were born here? It feels like it, but the reality is it wasn't yesterday, it was many yesterdays ago. That's how time works--it just keeps going. It doesn't really care that you want to stop it and make it last longer, doesn't care two bits about it.
It's always hard to say goodbye. And over the past couple weeks we have had to say goodbye to so many dear people in our life. The pain we have in leaving is the happiness we had in being--that is how it is. We have come from not knowing anyone here in Wisconsin to now leaving some of our best friends.
So now we are looking back on the memories we have made here--buying our first home, surviving our first blizzard, seeing our daughters born and raised here, growing stronger in our marriage, finding friends who love us for us, enjoying the occasional cheese curd. Isn't it amazing how a place you have never been before, a place so different from the one you grew up in, a place where you have no family, no history, and no sunshine for what feels like 6 months can suddenly, wonderfully come to be a place you love deeply?
Places mark us. They shape us and mold us and it really is only in leaving a place that we realize how deeply they have affected us. They get their claws into us and don't let go, they get into our blood and our hearts. It is why the smell of salt air will always remind of Mobile Bay--where I grew up for 12 years.
Don't take the place you live in for granted, enjoy it, revel in it--who knows how long you will be there?
I am so grateful for the place where our family was able to spend the past 4 and a half years. Wisconsin really is a beautiful place filled with the most decent people you could ever meet--hardworking, kind, humble, and strong. Thank you Wisconsin (and Madison especially) for being our home and shaping us so profoundly.
It's time for us to go, to move on and begin our journey in a new place, but we go in sadness and joy, grateful and grieving, excited for what's ahead and yet wishing we could just stay in this moment forever.
The fire is dying out now, the final pieces of wood turning to ash. We will leave part of ourselves here tomorrow and we will bring Wisconsin (and all the other places we have been) with us as we go--hopeful for what's to come, thankful for the pain we feel...it truly was the happiness we had...and the happiness we will have every time we think of this place that became our home.
