Adventure Awaits

I’m a farm girl at heart.

I grew up on a farm for the first 20 years of my life, and never lived anywhere else. I best parts that come along with farm life are the stability and roots that you can put down there. Farms don’t just up and move out of nowhere, so the lives that my family and I lived centered around our little piece of the world that was always home to us.

At 20, I moved to Macomb to attend Western. It was hard for a few weeks. I remember lying on my couch and crying for a few nights because I missed our farm so badly. I never admitted it to anybody (except for now), but I was homesick. I missed our worn in brown carpet of the living room, the awful yellow wallpaper in our stairway covered in posters of our teenage years, and our silly dogs that always drool and greet you at the end of the day like you've been gone for months. I missed the roads that my car practically drove itself on because they were so well known.

But after a few weeks, it wasn’t so bad. I missed where my parents lived and I had grown up, but Macomb became home. I loved the hustle and bustle of a small town and campus life. I loved being close to my friends at all times and the exhilarating rush of having a Wal-Mart five minutes away.

And now, at 22, I’m about to face my 5^th move in 3 years. Except this time, it’s not across town or even across the state. It’s across the country. Luke and I are moving to Ft. Benning, Georgia about a week and a half after our wedding in July. For small-town, slow-paced-life me, this is a BIG change. BIG, BIG, BIG. I’ve known it was coming for, well, a long time. I knew when Luke and I started dating that he was a military man, and moving was just a tiny piece of the puzzle for him.

This being said, I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t a little nervous. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a few tears in my eyes every time I say goodbye to my family knowing that soon enough, the goodbyes aren’t going to be just for a few days at a time. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t dreading packing up all of our fragile stuff to move ten hours away. I guess it’s those farm girl roots in me that are holding on strong as I’m learning to let go of a life I’ve known for so long.

As I was packing up my books and winter clothes today, I was trying to shake the knots in my stomach and lump in my throat by remembering all of the things I’m excited for with this new life I’m about to enter into. New places, new people, new things to see. I spent a few minutes thinking about what life would have been like if Luke had a civilian job and we decided to stick around Macomb… and I couldn’t do it! I cannot imagine a life for us here because it’s not where God wants us to be at the moment. I started thinking about the adventurous life that I have always longed for and dreamed of, but have never really gotten the chance to live, and how I truly feel that is about to begin here in a few short weeks. 

Going back to my farm girl roots, my natural inclination is to be comfortable in routine and familiarity. Growing up, I always countered that by reading and writing stories of characters who go off on wild adventures to see the world. I always loved tales of heroes and heroines who got caught up in a story so great, that their very lives changed the course of the future. I wanted that. I STILL want that. Which got me thinking –

Where would Frodo have been if he’d decided to stay in the Shire and live a normal hobbit life?

What would have happened if Harry had stayed inside the safe walls at Hogwarts his 7^th year, and not gone out to fight and destroy Voldemort?

Where would Jo have been if she’d decided to stay at Orchard House and marry Teddy, just so “things stay the way they are”?

Where would Robin have been if he’d never gone off to fight in the Crusades alongside King Richard?

What if Maria had stayed at the convent and not gone off to take care of 7 brats with a growly Naval officer father?

(I get it, I'm obsessed with the VonTrapp family. You don't have to point it out.) 

What if Lucy hadn't opened the wardrobe?

I’ll tell you what would have happened… not a lot. Monotony. A very short story. Not a lot worth retelling.

Now I'm not saying that you have to go off on a grand adventure away from home to have a story that spans the ages. That just happens to be on my docket for the next few years. :) 

Growth is part of life, and sometimes it has to hurt a little in order for something great to become of it. I’m excited for this next part of my adventure to begin!

What is your favorite adventure story?