The Next Chapter

As one chapter in my life has wrapped up, the next is just beginning.

Today marks my first full day on my own in my new home, Nashville, Tennessee.  I drove up with my family on Saturday, moved in on Sunday and Monday, and am now in the long process of sorting through all of the boxes that sit inside this new house that is now my home.

I'm getting ahead of myself - let me step back a minute...

This summer has been a whirlwind.  Here's the quick summary: home from Liberia; Nashville for a day to house-hunt; home to buy a car; bachelorette party for my sister; a couple days at home; my sister's wedding in Key West, FL; trip to Atlanta, GA, Wingate, NC, and Winston-Salem, NC for about 10 days; home for my sister's wedding celebration; 4 days at home; St. Louis, Missouri for Passport youth camp; family reunion/beach trip in Alligator Point, FL; home for 4 days; move to Nashville. 

People have asked me a few times how the "reverse culture-shock" has been, but with all that has been happening, I haven't had too much time to sit and process.  I think I've talked about this a little bit before, but the discomfort that comes with feeling strange in your own home comes and goes.  There are days when I feel completely normal in a Super Target and days when it feels like a foreign land.  There are times when I wish that I was still in Liberia, and times when it seems so far away and so different that it feels almost as if it were all a dream.  I try to surround myself with small reminders that help me hold my memories close and motivate me to try to stay in touch with the people in Liberia who have been so dear to me over this past year.  There are moments I miss it so deeply.  I look forward to the day when I will know for sure that I am going back.

In the meantime, I'm trying to focus on my new reality: Nashville.  I'm still in that awkward beginning phase of living in a new place when you don't really know who your friends are, where the grocery stores are, where to go for a run, etc.  I know I've experienced this each time I've moved to a new place, but it's funny how the memory of this part of the transition always fades so that when you experience the awkwardness, it takes you my surprise yet again.  I know in a month or two I will get used to being here, learn my way around, and maybe even make a friend or two.  In the meantime, I'm trying to appreciate the final few weeks of an unscheduled life before school starts and things really get going.

All I can hope for is that Nashville is as special to me as all the other cities I've lived in have been!!