Update... maybe the last until we move... I imagine you'll survive

Mr F changed his plans and was able to arrange his time off, so that when he came down on Saturday night he was able to stay here until we close and the moving truck pulls away next Monday.

The packing and moving is with this development doable.

I've also managed to schedule *last playdates* with all of Kid's best friends and a final pizza & movie night for them all to be together one very last time before we move. I'm really glad that it worked out timing wise with all of them. And she's been happy and it all seems like a good wrap up for her, not sad. We're having our party a couple days before we move so it won't be too overly fraught with eminent moving-ness for her.

Coming back has been confirming. We did the right thing. Are doing the right thing.

Sometimes I worry about going back to a place (Brooklyn for one) and being there and being overwhelmingly sad for what I've left behind. And even though things have been hard and less than we hoped, there were certainly good things about Asheville. Maybe I'd come and see that I'd missed it all, so caught up in the constant stress of all the things that went wrong, that I didn't see them... until now... when I'd chosen to give them up.

That hasn't happened.

We weren't blinded by our circumstances.

It all seems replaceable.

And being back in Michigan these past few weeks has felt so comfortable and right. So known. And not in the claustrophobic way I had always imagined it would when I was in highschool and couldn't imagine moving back... EVER. Let alone choosing to do it... TWICE. Choosing, both times, over places people dream of living.

Go figure.

I was driving in my car with my niece. We were coming back from the cottage Up North. She said "I don't know why people don't like Michigan. Every time I go someplace else... I like it... but I come back and I think it isn't better. I mean... the trees." And I said "Michigan is underrated."


Not that I wasn't looking at a British car magazine the other day... and talking to Mr F and him saying "There are a lot more car magazines in Europe." And me saying "Oh! You definitely have to go for that!... imagine... The Furiouses Go Europe."

But even with that... with the wanderlust I will never lose... I know we're doing the absolute right thing for us. Having family and friends who have known us. Where not every single event is new, or polite, or a potluck (ha!). Where it is easy. Where you know where to go. And I need that now. We deserve to just enter this time with a good enough house, and good enough schools, and good enough job, and good enough health... and focus on enjoying the goodness that is found in a life that is easier.

And so we will. Or try at least.