August 11, 2006

Where the Heart Is

I sometimes like I'm pulled between two worlds and I can't quite decide where it is that I want to live.

My mom said the other day that she yearns for Michael; that she thinks about him all the time and just wants to be with him. I told her that I think that's a fairly typical reaction for a new grandmother, but what I didn't tell her, as my eyes filled with tears, was that I feel the same way.

I left Ohio because it didn't feel like home. Because I knew the world was bigger than what I was going to find there. Because I just knew in my gut that there were bigger things waiting for me. I was right, mostly, and in the 4+ years I've lived in Atlanta, I've managed to plant pretty deep roots. I own a home; I have a great job that I would be a fool to leave; I belong to a church that satisfies my soul and stretches me every day. I have friends.

It used to be that those things outweighed the family that I'd left behind. After all, it's natural and normal to leave the nest and move beyond the borders of your life. But the scales have begun to tip the other way and I'm not sure what to do about it.

Posted by hannah at 02:46 PM