What I was waiting for

All summer, I knew I would move at the end of the summer. I just didn't know where. And I had this feeling. Undeniable yet mysterious. The feeling that I was waiting for something.

When it started to look like Jeremy had a chance at this Princeton job, I knew on some level, that this was what I had been waiting for.

Not just a new job for my husband. A full-time non-student opportunity for him and for our family. It was something else. And the way I felt it then wasn't as corny and trite as "a new start. a grand new beginning."

It wasn't like that at all. I wouldn't have called it that. In fact, I didn't call it anything. I just felt it.

I felt something was coming. A change. And of course you know it came big.

Somehow, carrying that feeling with me all those months had another effect. And I don't know if I can actually write about it in any meaningful way. I don't know if I can make it come out right. Because I knew I was waiting for something and that a change was coming, but I didn't know what it was. Do you see why that's important? It is so important because I searched in my self (no other way to say it) for what that might need to be, what I would be open to, what I could get myself ready for. How far I was willing to go. And I don't mean geographically. How much change could I handle? And how much change did I want?

I never answered these questions. I only asked them. And I let the asking do the work.

See, I'm failing here. I'm failing to capture the real feeling that I have now. Maybe I could say that walking around all summer wondering what I was waiting for opened me up. Stick with me here for a second. Have you ever shaped a loaf of bread and then, using a very sharp knife, made a slash (or three) in it before leaving it to rise? Well, that's one way of looking at that feeling I had--like it was the very sharp knife. It cut me open just a little bit and then, as the slash grew wider and wider with the rising of the bread, I was more and more open.

No. I know. The metaphor doesn't really work. So how do I say it? I felt for a long time that I had failed because I ignored that feeling for so long. I knew because of the undeniable mysterious feeling I had that I needed to wait for something, but instead I busied myself getting stressed about finding a new place to live in Boise. And this was a kind of failure. But despite my stubborn determination to ignore that feeling, it did its work. I opened up around the blade. And what is happening now, the change in me that is coming as an extension of this big cross-country move, might not have happened at all without that one memorable summer-long slash in the dough.

Perhaps I will write more about the form the change has actually taken another time.