As I sit here on my parents’ front porch listening to the rain drip around me, I feel a world away from my new home that awaits. Largely because I AM. It feels impossible to think that we will be boarding a plane in less than 36 hours, heading into hyperspace…
This summer has been an absolute whirlwind for our family. I feel a bit like a hobbit as I recount our journey – “there and back again” – from Tennessee, to Missouri, then north through Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, and ultimately landing in Colorado where we spent the bulk of our summer. And then back again, to my parents’ house in Missouri, to the bedroom I grew up in that I still refer to as my own. It has been so incredibly full-circle to return to this place where I was born and raised, the place where backyards and city-limits were the size of my borders for so long — to leave from HERE to go to the ends of the earth?? I really do feel rather like Frodo, so very common and ordinary, and quite incapable of imagining all that lies before me.
But if I can stretch this analogy just a wee bit farther, sometimes Gandalf knocks on the door of your comfy little hobbit hole, and you have no choice but to follow him out and on to the journey. I mean, who is a hobbit, after all, to question Gandalf?!
But hobbits and wizards aside, it’s time for our journey to finally begin. Or continue, really. And so we set out tomorrow, unsure of where this new road may lead. I mean, who ever really knows, after all? But we are very sure of Who goes before us, behind us, and WITH us every step of the way. And no offense, but I’m rather glad it’s not Gandalf 🙂
