sharing our next adventure(s)

I started this blog 14 years ago at the start of a new year and my final semester of college. I was entering the "real world" and wanted to document and remember precious memories with friends before whatever was next. I blogged about weekend recaps, plans for after graduation, family trips, birthdays. I wrote a lot about being a bridesmaid, a young life leader, a roommate, a working gal, a fiancee, a bride, a newlywed.  I shared pregnancy announcements and birth stories, travels and trials. It's followed me as I posted less and less frequently from South Carolina, to D.C., to Washington, to South Korea, to Tennessee and now Cincinnati, Ohio of all places. 

So what's next? We are once again in a transition period, in between moves. It's very familiar territory this balancing act of savoring the right-now, making memories where we are, but with one eye glancing down the road. One foot already out the door, stepping onto an airplane that will take us back overseas this summer for our family's "semester abroad" in England! 

Simultaneously we have also been planning, and perseverating, and praying about where we will return to when our British adventure concludes.  Somewhere we can dig in, put down some deeper roots, and best of all be closer to family. South Carolina is calling us back!

By this time next year we will have literally moved twice. The amount of logistics, airplane rides with three small children, and all the schlepping involved could make me sweaty and panicky.... and yeah, it honestly does a little. But mostly I'm just excited. I wonder about all that we will have experienced together, how my kids will have grown, the stories we'll come back with. The mystery of what's next. I'm excited to see the dreams my husband and I have for our family unfold in ways we can't fully plan for or anticipate. I'm excited about the going and the coming back, the setting out and the settling down.

I want to dust off my journaling muscles and write it all down with pen and paper just for my older self to look back on and sigh and say "remember when?"  The big adventures as well as the sweet simple moments at home (wherever that may be). And I also want to share some of that goodness with friends and family here too.  For my grown up kids to be able to read my own words and blur the lines between their own memory and just a family story they've heard so many times before. 

I've gone back and forth on how to do that well though. I'm much more protective of how I share my kids online, their faces and also their stories.  And I'm much more sensitive to how I spend my time online overall. Does it bring fruit into our family's life? Does it glorify God? Trying to balance all those factors, I'm tentatively writing here once again, uncertain exactly how I want this space to look but knowing I have things to say and I want to remember and record this season.