I am moving back to North Carolina.

The choice to move back to NC was extremely hard for me. Through an unexpected series of events, an opportunity came available to me that would offer me closer proximity to my family and also incredible career growth. Since my attitude about my career has always been that while I don’t care about having a career, as long as I’m not at home with babies, I might as well have one, this choice should have seemed easy. Here is a company that has offered to move me and grow me in my career. A company where I am on a first name basis with the executives. A company that has promised me financial stability for as long as I want to stay. A company that molded me as an employee fresh out of college and has continued to encourage my success, even after I left a few years ago to pursue personal dreams. A company that is letting me change career paths without making me start entry level again. You would think the decision would be easy. Even though I never moved here with thoughts of permanence, the choice was harder than I was prepared for. I’ve only been here for a year and a half and I have come to love this place in a way I'm not even sure Taylor Swift could put into words. All of a sudden I have thoughts clouding my mind and perhaps my judgment. What if my time here isn’t over. What if I’m jumping the gun moving back already. What if the person I am now doesn’t fit in with the friends and the life I still have in NC. I tried to remove the emotions out of my decision in order to make it that much clearer. But what if what seems like the best choice isn’t the right choice. Can you really remove emotions from choices that will affect the rest of your life.

I don’t know what I can say about this place that I haven’t already said. I know I am extremely blessed to have been able to move to a place where I knew not a soul and have the experiences and the time I’ve had here. I love the smell of the air every morning when I cross the ditch to go to work and the year round taste of sunscreen. I love sitting on the water and eating mini thanksgiving treats at Barbara Jeans. I love weekend breakfasts spent at Ellen’s with an early bird special #2 and lunches at Angie’s. I love Monday Bachelorette Parties with Tracie’s good cookin’ (shoot, I love any night at Tracie’s visiting with her). I love saying “hey neighbor” to the porch below me and knowing I’ll get a response back. I love seeing Pete roll around in the sun on our porch and stretching (even though he is a cat, his joys are my joys so stop hating on me). I love Sunday nights at Palms, watching the sunset over the garden while praising my Lord. But you know what I love most? I love most knowing that no matter what silly thing I want to do, I have a security blanket of friends who will jump up and go, no matter what. The Lord met me where I was with these friends. I am so grateful that I feel as though my heart might burst open. I want to take each of them home with me in my pocket and store them in my treasure chest so I can play with them whenever I want. And I want to leave myself here with them so I don’t miss out on anything and they don’t forget me. The last time I moved, I felt like throwing my middle finger in the air as I drove out of town (and I may or may not have done just that). I knew I’d miss bits and pieces of the life that I knew, but I was not divided at all on that decision. Moving was a breath of fresh air and I wanted to draw in wholly that breath for as long as I could. I am a big fan of change, but this time, change has strings attached.

It’s 72 degrees today so I rode up to the beach to bid farewell to the sand and the surf. I’ve got my freshly pedicured gangly bots in the water. As the waves crash around my summer coral color, and even as I think about all these things, I can’t deny the surge of excitement that is surrounding my person right now (side note to anyone who knows me at all: even after a year and a half of living at the beach, I still don’t love the water). This is my last weekend in my beloved PVB. I move in just a few days. I have been feeling so overwhelmed these past few weeks with finishing up projects at work, spending time with the people I have grown to love deeply here all while coordinating a move to another state. To a city I am familiar with but yet out of sorts with all at the same time. But today, this last Saturday here, I don’t want anything more than this: to wiggle my toes back and forth from water to sand and soak up as much of this life I can.

(Additionally, it’s a nice reminder to know that I have brains in my head, feet in my shoes and I can steer myself in any direction I choose. I know what I know and as long as I don’t forget to be dexterous and deft, as long as I don’t mix my right foot with my left, it’s 98.34% guaranteed I will succeed.)