Musings From the Other Side

How is it possible that a fleeting thought – "What if we moved to Texas?" – can become a more concrete thought – "We should move to Texas" – and then an action – "We're moving to Texas" – all within a matter of weeks and months? 

I remember dreading the process ... being fearful of it, having never sold a house before. I remember April – in the midst of going through all our things ... looking at that dumpster we rented for a week, wondering how everything was going to play out. Somewhere out there, there was a couple-thousand-square-foot plot of earth that was destined to become the next Moore family home. 

On Google Earth and Zillow, I'd zoom out and look at the whole of central Texas and think, "One of those pinpoints – those tiny pixels – will become ours. Now, which one will it be??"

I'd think ahead to August and wonder what life would be like on the other side of all the work of moving. I'd wonder about our new routine and about the emotions I would be experiencing as Ryley packed for college from the safety and security of our new (but then unimaginable) home.

I'd think ahead to November and December and try to picture Ryan and me as empty-nesters, preparing for our first holidays as Texans.

What will it be like on the other side of all this?

But it was still May, and we had a long way to go. We'd pore over listing after listing, despite the fact that we knew none of them would still be available by the time our house sold and we could move forward. Such a massive task lay ahead of us, and its importance was not lost on us – It was the chance to create the life we wanted – to choose our neighborhood and our Walmart and our doctor's office and the overall vibe of the community. To say, "This is what I want my commute to look like." Or "This is the road I want to drive down a million times." We pictured our lives in Temple, in Belton, in Killeen, in Lago Vista, in Manor, in Cedar Park, in Pflugerville, in Kyle. 

But it was the charming and quaint town of Buda, nestled between Austin and Texas' gorgeous Hill Country, that would steal our hearts. The delightful marriage of rustic and city convenience, with big, sprawling century-old oak trees hanging over the streets. The two-lane road from Main Street to our subdivision passes a mule farm and a historic settlement and cemetery of freed slaves. We have both cows and a Starbucks within a half mile of our house. Haystacks and a Sonic. An old drug store and a modern CVS. And food trucks selling the best BBQ we've ever tasted in our lives.

I had not relocated out-of-state since I was 26. At 44, I'm impressed with how I've adapted – impressed with my know-how of all the adulting tasks, like signing up for a toll pass and transferring our prescriptions. I've joined the online neighborhood pages, where I've both sold and bought furniture. I've arranged to give away moving boxes and spent several Saturday mornings tinkering with our sprinkler system to see how it worked. While shopping for college, Ryley and I visited every Walmart and Target within a 20-mile radius, as well as the outlet mall. 

The sweet tea and tortilla chips from H-E-B are worth the extra grocery store trip (and groceries are cheaper in general!). Ryley and I also learned that if we don't get to the farmer's market right when they open, they'll run out of doggie ice cream before we get to buy any for Juliet. My salsa gal is hit or miss on farmer's market attendance, it seems, but my plant guy is there every week, tempting me with unique houseplant species to add to my collection.

The intricacies of what makes up a culture fascinate me ...

Strands of bulbs stretch between trees and around almost every patio, lighting Texas backyards with warmth and ambience. Sidewalks are regularly cleaned with pressure-washers; I'd never heard of that, myself, but I can't deny that the sidewalks here do seem to need a good scrub-down every now and then.

People are people wherever you go. But the ones in Texas? So friendly and hospitable, so polite. Yes, ma'am; yes, sir. The neighbors actually want to get to know each other here; our cul-de-sac even gathered for a pre-trick-or-treating BBQ on Halloween. 

As friendly as they are in person, however, Texans' aggressive driving game is strong – especially the big, oversized pickup trucks that ride our backside.  

It took us awhile to catch on, but the infrastructure of one-way service/frontage roads along the highways actually makes some sense. We only had to drive several miles past our missed exit a few times before we learned that these roads are extensions of the highways themselves, consolidating the entrances and exits. And the U-turn lanes that flip you around to the other side of the highway? Brilliant.

I still don't get why Texas highway interchanges have to rise 300 feet up in the air. Everything here is bigger just for the sake of being bigger and more dramatic, as if to say, "We have so much room here; look how high and wide we can build!"

Storms don't just come from the West – they come from the Gulf, too. I'm relearning everything I thought I knew about weather patterns. And because we're so far south, it stayed dark until almost 8 a.m. (pre-Daylight Savings). But the bushes and flowers and plants are so tropical-looking – so alive and colorful even into November. We haven't had any frost yet! And while the fall colors here aren't as brilliant as they are in Colorado or New England, there's something cozy and comforting about the way the Hill Country brush is beginning to rust, turning a dullish burnt-orange.

We counted more than 80 vineyards between here and Fredericksburg, and 70 of those were within a 30-mile stretch! The topography is unlike any place I've lived before; magnificent oak trees with gnarly branches dot the brush-covered hills, alternating with meadows and creeks, a honey stand, a food truck – unpredicted treasures lying around every bend and tucked into the valleys behind thick woods.

There's so much new to explore. New roads lead to new towns where we find new scenery, new markets, new restaurants, and new people. At this time in our lives, the ability to follow new paths and fill our eyes and minds with new things, new ideas, and new beauty ... is simply priceless. 

Texas life is a good life. I marvel at God's creation – at how vast and different it is all over the world. And yet, in a lot of ways, it's the same.

***

I thank God multiple times a day for giving us this house; it is absolutely too good for us. We bought it for less than what our Colorado house sold for, and yet it is bigger and newer and has everything we asked God for – down to the pretty backyard and the soaking tub in the master bathroom.

You're going to think we'd been living like savages, previously – and rightfully so. But here is just a partial list of the things in this house that have changed our lives:

The doggie door

The air conditioning

The sprinkler system

The filtered water/ice dispenser in the fridge

A garage door

A two-car garage

This rolling four-part laundry hamper cart we bought from Amazon

When I think about the way God delivered us from our Colorado house, with all its quirks and needs? (Don't get me wrong; that house was a true blessing to us for 14 years. But the upkeep an older house like that required was beyond our means). It's like He plucked us out of the miry, stinky pit and set us upon a rock. And He set the whole move in motion a year ago, by giving me a job that I can do from anywhere. He was laying it all out for us, piece by piece.

We are not worthy.

At the Halloween get-together at our neighbor's house, someone asked, "So ... are you renting? Or did you buy it?" 

"We bought it," Ryan and I answered in unison.

I think someone squealed with glee.

"Perhaps the curse is broken!" they joked.

As it turns out, this was a rental house for many years and, apparently, always a centerpiece for drama. In fact, the most recent renters ran a marijuana grow operation – They filled every room with pot plants (even the attic) until one day the cops showed up and busted the whole thing. That's when the landlord decided to put the house up for sale, just in time for the Moore family to stumble across it in June.

My biggest takeaway from this is that apparently this house is a great growing environment for my lovely new houseplants. 👍

***

I think I'm ready to talk about August – which was, arguably, one of the most difficult months of our lives. 

Ryan has had back issues since Ryley was a baby; it's been an ongoing rollercoaster for years. Every six months or so, he reinjures it, but after he rests for a few days, he's typically good to go. It's become a pretty predictable pattern.

Of course, the last thing we needed was for him to hurt himself during the moving process, so with his history, he made it a point of going easy; we even hired movers to load and unload. Throughout the drive down in the moving truck, however, his back started to really stiffen up. And within a few days of our arrival, he found himself laid up in bed.

No worries, we thought. This has happened before. Just a few days of rest is all he needs.

Except it wasn't getting better. It was getting worse by the day.

We'd just barely pulled into town, but here we were googling urgent cares and doctors and pharmacies. Mobility was almost impossible. I bought him a walker so he could drag himself to the restroom or to doctor appointments and MRIs and injections that didn't even seem to put a dent in the pain.

Most of you know the story, so I'll be brief. But I just want to say that I had personally never experienced seeing someone in that kind of excruciating pain, for that long. It was wearing on all of us. For the first time I began to notice and pay attention to ads for pain management doctors; I have new-found sympathy and respect for my friends that deal with unmanaged chronic pain.

I dropped Ryan off at work on his first day of his new job (teacher in-service), and my heart broke watching him drag himself across the plaza and into the building, one walker clomp at a time. He made it through four days at work before he simply could not anymore. On a Sunday morning, Ryley and I dropped him off at the ER in downtown Austin (COVID protocol wouldn't let us stay), and at his urging, went to breakfast at a snazzy hotel brunch place. Two days later he would have emergency surgery, and even after the operation, he would go through three to four weeks of intense pain as the compressed nerve went through its wake-up process. 

Months later, I can look back and mostly forget how utterly awful and scary it was in the moment. 

But there was one particular day, five days after I dropped Ryley off at college, that I hit rock-bottom emotionally. Ryan was two weeks post-op, and the nerve pain was worse than the back pain had been pre-surgery. He was crying out in agony ... again. He had spent more time in our bedroom than anywhere in the house, and though I tried to keep him comfortable and keep him company, the very thought of being in our bedroom made me depressed. But I felt guilty being anywhere else.

We'd lived in the house for more than a month and Ryan didn't know where Ryley and I had unpacked anything. He'd never even made it as far as the closet to see how I'd organized our clothes. While he was tethered to the bed, I had the whole house (even the whole town) to explore, but I felt frozen. I didn't want to live in the rest of the house without him. I didn't want to drive around town without him. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. 

I'd driven our daughter to college and dropped her off myself. Now, the house was big and empty without her. Big and empty without Ryan. I was lonely and tired and bored and afraid. All my excitement about this grand adventure had melted into a heap of disappointment.

My courage crumpled. I cried for an entire day.

Ryan would later say that the whole back injury situation was very humbling for him. The staff and parents at his school came together and graciously blessed us with gift cards for meals. The administration was so supportive. We were held up in prayer by so many friends and family members. And because of that, we kept going. I dropped him off at work in the mornings and picked him up in the afternoons. He was on so many painkillers that he'd fall asleep in the car and then crash in bed as soon as we got home.

But ever so gradually, things began to improve. Eventually, he could bear the pain without taking meds. Then, he felt like walking a little bit. At some point, he wanted to see what our grocery store was like, so we took an after-work field trip. One weekend, we went for a long drive to see Ryley. And then one day, about two months after our move and the start of the whole debacle, he could finally drive himself. 

Today, his back is still a little stiff. But he's come such a long way. I still don't let him bend over to pick things up or lift anything heavy. But he is so much better. Thank You, Jesus.

***

We've seen Ryley a handful of times since she left for college. She's been home three times, and we've gone up there four times, I think, for different reasons. It's maybe getting a little easier to say goodbye? 

After we drive away, and for the next day or two, we feel her absence deeply. We miss her. But it's just the transition between two existences – the one with her and the one without her. 

This applies to her, too. She cries when we drop her off at the campus, but as soon as she's back in her dorm, her life there resumes and picks up where it left off. Mom and Dad are but a distant memory.

After a couple days, Ryan and I get back into our routine. We are comfortable with it. It's quiet and peaceful. I mean, I talk more – It's like my tongue is finally loosed to tell Ryan everything on my mind, just like in the olden days, before we gave life to a chatterbox and I suddenly couldn't get a word in edgewise. 😂

We take care of Ryley's dog. We try to provide her with the level of care that Ryley would approve of, but we fall painfully short. I refuse to let her lick my face; I have to draw the line somewhere.

The house stays clean.

Laundry is done in three loads instead of five.

There are no water cups or half-empty cans of LaCroix sitting around, and I don't know what to do with all the space!

We're a little bored.

We eat out, and we marvel at how cheap it is with just two people instead of three. 

We go to an antique fair and have an absolute blast – but we're mindful of how much Ryley would love this place, and when we leave, we commit to coming back with her in tow.

She calls here and there.

We text her, but we don't hear back. 

I'm sad when we don't hear from her, but I'm happy, too. Because it means she's okay. She's thriving. She has overcome the bad bout with homesickness she had in the beginning of October, and she's developing her ecosystem of friends. She's gaining knowledge and wisdom. She's becoming empowered and confident and Spirit-led. She's where she's supposed to be. 

For a fleeting moment, I let sadness wash over me that we didn't have more kids, because then her absence wouldn't feel quite as raw. But I quickly remind myself that this was the lot we were given, and we've always made the best of it.   

We build new furniture from a kit, and we can't wait for her to see it when she comes home. We need her help hanging our wall art, too; she calls herself a "human level," after all, and she's always had strong opinions about the way we decorate the house. She's always the biggest cheerleader for any kind of home improvement! 

We fill our weekends with home projects, coffee, football, farmer's markets, church, good food, TV series, books, day trips to new places, and deep conversations, and we slip easily back into our pre-parenting selves, like pulling on a comfy pair of old snow boots from our previous life in Montana. 

It's amazing how easy it is to remember how to be with just each other, almost like we haven't been preoccupied with child-rearing for nearly two decades – almost like a sassy green-eyed cherub hasn't been the very center of our lives.

I kill 20 wasps in our house over the course of a day. When Ryan gets home, I suggest that they're coming from the fireplace. He sticks his head in and sees a dozen wasps flying around the inside of the chimney. He lights the fireplace, and we roast the wasp nest. He calls me "The Wasp Slayer" in honor of my bravery and 20 conquests.

A neighbor's cat sneaks into our house via the doggie door in the middle of the night, laying a present on our sofa. For the next several nights, I lie awake waiting to hear the doggie door flap open and shut so I can catch the perpetrator in the act. I get close a couple of times, but the sensor light on the patio scares it away. 

We still have our adventures. We are still ourselves, this side of parenthood.

But the farther we get from the last time we saw Ryley, the harder it becomes. Two weeks go by, then three. Our hearts ache. We can hardly wait for her to be home – to simply be together in the same room.

A Marvel movie comes out. Ryan wants to go, and he knows I will go with him. But Ryley is his movie buddy, and it just won't be the same. He puts it off. He hears she's going to the movie with friends, so we talk briefly again about going, just the two of us. But it doesn't materialize.

Then she calls. 

"Dad, my friends are going to see the movie tonight, but I'm going to stay back and do homework and get the dorm ready for a surprise birthday party. Can we go see it together when I'm home for Thanksgiving?"

It's a date. 💕

One More Week

I’m here to tell you that it happens. The earth keeps turning, the seasons change, and before you know it, you’re merely a week away from your child’s high school graduation.

A week.

One more week of our years-old school routine—of that predictable rhythm and cadence. 

One more week of meal-planning and rushed mornings and fights over the bathroom. 

One more week of "What's your homework situation?" and "Get your stuff done!" and "Ryley, hurry up!" and "Mom, are the jeans in the dryer?" 

The cycle repeats itself week after week for years. And then, eventually, the weeks whittle their way down to one.

***

All the jokes about holding her back a year (or Ryan failing her on purpose) are pointless. Questioning ourselves about whether or not we should have waited another year to start kindergarten? Too late. That ship has sailed. 

Flipping through the "Friday folder" and saving all the A+ work? Everything she wants to keep is now neatly stored in a tub in the garage.

Writing a check for the Scholastic book fair, or a field trip, or school pictures, or Skate City night, or the yearbook? Done, done, done, done, and done.

Reading monthly school newsletters? Stopped that years ago (shhhh!).

Letting our school lunch bill get built up until it's way behind and then scrambling to pay the balance before they deny her a meal? Done, thank goodness.

Receiving threatening letters in the mail about her tardies? Just five more days, guys. Five more days.

All the worries I had each spring about finding good, affordable summer childcare? Over. 

Early-morning donut sales for Outdoor Lab and D.C. trip fundraising? No more.

Trying to brainstorm for a good science fair project? Never again.

Dragging ourselves to school music programs on a seasonal basis? Been there, done that. (And let me tell you: I strongly believe that when choosing a spouse, people need to consider that that's the kind of doldrum required in marriage; when you choose a husband, you're saying, "I want to sit next to YOU at all those school events and concerts and award ceremonies, heretoforth and forevermore." So, find a good one.)

Letting her drive by herself for the first time? And then letting her drive again? And again? Ugh. It IS getting easier ... 

Finding a prom dress? Check!

Ironing the graduation gown? I hung it up today. Now it's starting to get real. 

***

There have been some developments. 

Last summer, my friend from work announced that she and her husband (in their 50s, and empty-nesters) were moving to Houston. As I talked to her about their plans and the super-trendy neighborhood they chose to live in, I found myself living vicariously through her. How fun would it be to just uproot and go on a new adventure? And what do we have to lose? We're still young. We don't have any other kids to put through high school. Ryan's a teacher and could theoretically work anywhere.

Though a bit daunting, the idea percolated in my brain over the next few months, and the wheels started turning.

In the fall, through my brother-in-law, an incredible job opportunity pretty much landed in my lap—and by December, I was working completely remotely, in a new field, with co-workers all over the globe. One more tie to Denver snapped as, suddenly, it didn't matter where I lived. At the time, the perk I was most excited about was being home with Ryley while she completed her senior year virtually. But in retrospect, I see that God's plan was so much bigger than that. 

Shortly after Ryley decided to attend Baylor, Ryan started researching the Waco area, Austin (a place he's always loved), and everything in between.

"I can't get it out of my head that we should be within reach of her," he said.

The three of us have always been extraordinarily close. I recently read the book Upstairs at the White House, which is a great read, all about the presidents and first ladies from the mid '40s to the early '70s. The family that stood out to me was President Harry Truman, his wife Bess, and their 21-year-old daughter Margaret. The three were very close, with two of them often teaming up on the other, and according to staff, there was always lots of laughter amongst them.

Ryan and I always wanted a bigger family, but when we didn't get that, we threw ourselves into raising the kiddo we did have. As a result, our family dynamic is pretty close-knit—we're a bit of a trio—a unit. We want Ryley to have her space to grow and do her thing in college. We don't want to smother her. But would it be so bad to be an hour or two away?

In addition, my parents and my brother's family are in Dallas, and travel to see them is always such a pain—and then it's hard to leave at the end of the visit. It just kind of makes sense that we move closer. Not next-door, but within an "easy weekend trip" distance.

All of that is to say that Ryan started exploring the cities of Texas. He applied for many a teaching job, and we put it in God's hands.

From the very beginning, we asked Ryley what she thought. We wanted to make sure she wouldn't be bitter (later on in life) that we left Colorado and moved her "homebase," so to speak.

"As long as you don't live IN Waco," she told us, "I don't care where you live. YOU GUYS are my home."

My heart melted.

We diligently started working to clean up our house so we could put it on the market. We've lived here 14 years—we raised Ryley here from the age of 3, and this house has endured many versions and seasons of us as people, so the clean-up and clean-out was no easy task.

Every weekend for a month, we tackled a different part of the house. There were 14 straight days in April where the individual pieces of Ryley's entire childhood lay strewn across our living room floor, as we lugged boxes and tubs down from her room and in from the garage so she could sort and make decisions. We rented a dumpster for the driveway and did some pretty hefty yardwork and garage organizing. We took four loads to Goodwill. 

But even then, we wondered if we were doing the right thing. Ryan was going through countless interviews (it seemed) and even flew down to Austin to teach a demo lesson at his "dream school." Our lives were in limbo, just a month and a half before our daughter was to graduate. And it was our doing. Why were we doing this??

Two days before we were scheduled to list our house, Ryan found out that he got the job! That made it so much easier to wrap our heads around selling our house! Then, after a busy three days of 109 showings and 13 offers, the house went under contract. It was a week of miracles!

"Do you feel like us selling the house the same month as your graduation is taking attention away from this milestone?" I asked Ryley.

"No, I'm glad it keeps your mind busy," she responded. "This way you're not so emotional."

She knows me well. 

So that's where we're at. The move to Austin is on the backburner until Ryley's graduation and celebration are behind us. Then, we will kick everything into high gear with finding a house and moving before the end of July—when we'll happily trade the aroma of legalized marijuana in the air for the more appealing smell of barbecue.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about this soon. But we are excited for a new adventure—a new area of the country to explore, while still living relatively close to both Ryley and my family. We've seen God's hand at work through this whole process—from planting the idea in my head a year ago, to the new job for me, to the dream job for Ryan, to our house selling so quickly. The pieces are all falling into place. 

For now though, I'm going to soak up this very last week of "normalcy." True to form, and similar to many Sunday nights over the last 13 years, Ryley has asked me to watch her rehearse her senior thesis presentation right now. 

Happily, sweetheart. Happily.   

How We Got From 5,300 Colleges to One

The moment we'd been waiting for arrived when we least expected it--and not at all how I imagined. 

Since September, every Thursday has been "HER Day" at our house for Hannah, Egla, and Ryley (aka H.E.R.). It's the designated day where these three besties try to cram a week's worth of missed in-person socialization into 8-10 hours. I'm eternally thankful that the other girls' families have been as dedicated to it as we; Ryley looks forward to it all week. They sprawl out all over our living room and attend classes on their laptops--separately but together. Then, around lunchtime they'll head to the thrift store or to get boba or to meet another friend for pho, then come back home for more online classes, movies, and general shenanigans.

Anyway, so it was HER Day, and they had just finished gallivanting around Aurora, getting a haircut, and hanging out in Barnes & Noble. Around 6 p.m., just as the sky was getting dark, Ryan and I came home to see police officers sneaking up on the house across the street from us. There's always been drama going down over there, and we have watched many a transaction transpire over the years. (In the week since, they've been evicted! Story for another time). So, of course, we assumed our nosy neighbor routine; we went inside, turned off the lights, opened the front window, and called the girls up to watch.

We were all squished up by the window in the dark, whispering, and trying hard to make out what was being said, but the situation fizzled, ending peacefully. I leaned back on the sofa, and absentmindedly, I opened my phone and clicked on my email. At the top of my inbox was an email from Baylor University:

"We have a special message for you!" it read.

I swiped to open: "Log in to your goBaylor account to see a special message from Baylor regarding your application status."

I could feel the rush of adrenaline. Ryley and her friends were still gathered on the carpet, chatting a mile a minute. 

One of the biggest frustrations about digital college admissions is that Ryley alone has the login info to her multiple accounts, so we're dependent upon her for updates. 

"Ryley, check your email," I urged, my voice shaking.

She pulled out her phone, took a look, and jumped to her feet to go get her laptop. And then the laptop was almost dead so she had to find her charge cord. And then we had to wait for it to boot up. You know how it goes. 

Meanwhile, H&E had gone back down to the family room, and because I watch a lot of internet, and Baylor is Ryley's first choice, I readied my phone to record her reaction in a video.

"No, Mom. Don't record, please," she said, while Ryan shook his head and shot me a disapproving glance. 

"Come on, guys. Please?"

"No," she answered firmly.

So the moment will be fixed in the memories of the three of us alone. (Not my fault.)

With Ryan looking over her shoulder, Ryley logged into her Baylor dashboard and was greeted by an animated display of fireworks and the words "Ryley, you're accepted!" It caught her off guard, and she sucked in her breath in excitement. 

"Heeeeey! Congratulations!" Ryan cheered, reaching over to give her a hug and a peck on the cheek.

She beamed, and we told her again and again how proud we are. After all, Baylor only accepts 45% of applicants, and it's, by far, the most prestigious school she applied to. Her friends were there to celebrate too, and after they left, she called her grandparents, who were possibly even more proud and excited than we. 😉

***

Now that all of the acceptance letters had arrived, I was suddenly hit with an unexpected worry: how she'd be able to pay for any college at all. 

We'd been working diligently toward the goal of getting into colleges for so long ... The applications alone had been such a chore. And then the visits. And then the long wait for admissions letters. We hadn't wanted to put the cart before the horse. But now it was time to think about the money.

Anxiety over money (or lack thereof) used to plague me constantly. But in recent years, I've been fairly free of worry in general. I've gained new confidence in the fact that God always takes care of us and that there's nothing that my anxiety can do to change the situation. I've seen Him work things out in our lives again and again and again. Now, though, I felt that familiar darkness come rushing back and a rock forming in the pit of my stomach.

Ryley is super-bright, and we are thankful that she's been offered generous academic scholarships at every college. But these days, unless you're extremely, extremely gifted (we're talking crazy-smart), the much-talked-about "full ride" doesn't seem to exist. And each school has its own special scholarship program that you have to apply for separately--a program that, if you're accepted to, will require interviews and a much higher level of finesse under pressure just for the privilege of competing for scholarships. 

Ryley was accepted to Seattle Pacific's scholarship competition and went through that whole process in January--virtual interview, virtual lecture with panel discussion, etc. But she hadn't yet heard back.

So what about the kids that are just of average grades? Are their parents millionaires? One school quoted that Ryan and I would have to pay $2200 a month (after her scholarship was applied) if she didn't want to take out loans. Um, WHAT???

We're not against loans. But we are, I believe, against $100,000+ in loans! 

Ryley had been awarded a generous merit scholarship with her Baylor admission, but the remaining amount still seemed insurmountable. So we prayed for a miracle.

***

The process of choosing a college is overwhelming. There are 5,300 colleges in the nation, and some, of course, aren't an option. But what if you overlook a good, viable option by accident? 

Three years ago, we started attending college fairs with Ryley. Approximately 160 colleges were represented, each with their own booth. We went up and down the aisles, trying not to make eye contact with the reps for "lame" colleges, and waiting in line for the chance to talk to someone at the "cool" colleges. Ryley was drawn to nearly any school in the Northwest ... George Fox University and Seattle Pacific were two favorites. But I remember her having a particular attachment to a tiny college in Alaska and then another one in Hawaii. She spent lots of time letting those reps talk her ear off about their offerings while she imagined her new parent-free life outside the continental U.S.

"Um, no," I said. "You're not going to a school in Alaska that only has an enrollment of 300 students. That's a waste of time and money."

I might be a bit opinionated.

But then, for the next three years, our mailbox and email inboxes overflowed with information from colleges we've never heard of -- Knox College, Willamette University, Hofstra University, Sierra Nevada University, Dixie State University in, um ... Utah? I'd stack mailers on the stairs for her to take up next time she went to her room; but they sat and sat until I threw them away. 

With thousands of colleges across the nation, how do you ever narrow it down to a handful--and then to one? What if a wonderful future awaits Ryley at Hofstra? What if throwing away their brochure is limiting all the possibilities? 

Two things were for certain--Ryley was wholly against any school that was a "college" and not a "university," and she would refuse to look at anything in the entire state of Texas.

Last spring, I convinced her to go to an overnight college visit at Ryan's and my alma mater in Tulsa. She was painfully clear that she would not be attending ORU, but we told her we just wanted her to see what our college experience was like. She agreed to it, but she had a bit of an attitude the whole weekend.

We had planned to visit more colleges in the summer between her junior and senior years, but the pandemic nixed that idea. So, then came September ... and then October. 

"Apply by November 1 for a decision by winter break!" most schools advertised.

But getting our girl to apply anywhere? Not easy.

Ryley has a tendency to ignore and procrastinate when it comes to stuff like this. Deep down, she's a little anxious and sad about the impending life changes, so she pushes it out of her mind as long as she can. Thankfully, Colorado's Free Application Day in mid-October was a good incentive for her to at least apply to the colleges in our state. Even then, she stubbornly refused to apply to a few that I suggested.

One decision we made early on was to eliminate any state colleges that weren't in Colorado. Why should she go to a state college in, say, Kansas or Nebraska, when she could get the equivalent education in Colorado for in-state tuition prices? I don't know if that was good logic. But we had to start eliminating somewhere.

Meanwhile, I reached out to an acquaintance who happens to be a guidance counselor. She gave us a list of suggestions of respected Christian colleges that offered linguistics (Ryley's field of interest), which was a great starting point. Honestly, Ryley wasn't wild about going to a specifically Christian college (not for any other reason than the fact that she likes to be different). But she did her due diligence and researched them. Then, before she actually applied, she narrowed it down even further. She wasn't interested in anything in California, and other than the University of Chicago, she really wasn't wild about any of the options in Illinois (and there were several). At her core, she still liked Seattle Pacific the best.

My mom mentioned Baylor, which had also been on our friend's list. It has a widely respected linguistics program and would only be 1.5 hours from my parents. Plus, it's pretty prestigious, as colleges go.

"I'm not going to Texas," Ryley reiterated. "I'm not. I hate Texas. It's hot; it's humid; it has big bugs. And I hate that 'Texas state pride.'"

Regardless, I contacted Baylor to see if they were doing in-person tours over the Thanksgiving week when we would be in Dallas. They were. I figured, at the very least, it would be another college campus for Ryley to see.

Sometimes my decisions aren't popular with Ryley.

The tour, however, was really impressive. Ryan was sold right away. Baylor has a high level of excitement and energy on its campus, and it operates like a well-oiled machine. Ryley got a free t-shirt, and we were all given free BU masks. We rode on a shuttle around the sprawling grounds, hopping off and on as our guide directed. Ryley barely said a word, except for when our tour guide showed us the bear exhibit. I think she may have cracked a small smile. Later, she made us go back and look at the bear enclosure up-close. :-)

Over the years, I've learned that Ryley needs time to process every experience before she's ready to talk about it. And if we badger her about something, she'll just dig her heels in against it. So we can't push. We have to wait. 

But based on the dismissive attitude I was picking up during our tour, Baylor was not an option. After all, it was in Texas, and her heart was in Seattle.

That night, she got on the phone with her friend Hannah, and they started making plans to visit Seattle Pacific, where they had both applied. They were ready to book their tickets right then and there. I was so frustrated. She was already moving on, and Baylor wasn't even cold in its grave! Looking back, I think seeing a college campus had just inspired her, and she was anxious to visit the others on her list. 

Even so, Baylor percolated in the back of her mind, and about a week after we got back, Ryley decided to apply there just in case. I should never underestimate what's really going on in her head. She thinks deeply about things and holds her cards close to her chest.

We did visit Seattle Pacific in January. But a funny thing happened. While Ryley had had this "image" of SPU on the brain during her entire visit to Baylor, she couldn't get Baylor out of her head the entire time we were at SPU. It was a small and sweet campus--pretty, and built on the side of a hill. But it was painfully quiet. We only saw a handful of students while we were doing our self-guided tour, whereas Baylor's campus had been bustling with activity. That had a big impact on Ryley.

Also, I think SPU has a great marketing department. I had looked at going there 25 years ago, and the picture I had formed in my head was vastly different from reality. We were all disappointed.

Sometime in January, she heard from the University of Colorado--she was being offered admission to their honors program along with a nice scholarship. It lurked as a backup option--a safety net in case nothing else worked out. The offer of the honors program would also give her a place in the honors dorm, which made me feel immediately better about her going to a school with a party reputation.

Meanwhile, for one reason or another, she was crossing other colleges she had been accepted to off her list. Ryan and I began to wonder if there was anywhere else she should apply, since February 1 was most schools' application deadline. But she insisted she was happy with her three choices.

However it happened, somehow we'd managed to weed through thousands of colleges and narrow it down to three.

***

While we waited and waited for Baylor's acceptance letter, Ryley had pretty much decided that--should she be accepted--that's where she wanted to go. She told us she didn't feel good about CU's party school atmosphere, and though she liked SPU, it just didn't feel right either. 

Even though it was in Texas, Baylor was the kind of college experience she was looking for. She could deal with the heat and humidity and "Texas state pride" for a few years, for the sake of a quality education from a respected institution. And she could still come home to Colorado.

Then, within a span of four days:

• She received her acceptance letter and a scholarship to Baylor
• She received a rejection letter from the full-ride scholarship competition at Seattle Pacific
• She heard that a party at CU turned into a riot with students attacking cops

It couldn't have been more clear to her, she said--except for the fact that Baylor was still really expensive. We resigned ourselves to the fact that, over spring break, Ryley would need to apply for every single outside scholarship that she could--and that if God wanted her to go there, He would need to perform a miracle before the registration deadline of May 1.

We have a spreadsheet of outside scholarships for her to apply to; the disheartening thing is that she won't hear if she's won any of them before the deadline. So, then, do we let her commit on May 1 and pay her deposit without knowing how she's going to swing it financially?

No, God would have to make it really clear before then. We kept praying and giving the situation back to Him. 

I emailed the admissions counselor and asked if Ryley took the SAT one more time and improved her score, would it qualify her for any more scholarships. She wrote back that SAT/ACT scores (Ryley took them 4 times, mind you) weren't even considered this year, due to COVID. Scholarships were awarded based on grades. 

Another couple of days went by. There had been an issue with our FAFSA information, which made me nervous.

My imagination always goes wild:

"Well, Mr. and Mrs. Moore, we've never seen anything like your finances. We're gonna have to rescind Ryley's admission."

I kept trying to remind myself that there is nothing so odd about our financial situation that it would keep them from processing her financial aid package.

Thankfully, Ryan looked into it, and it was an easy fix.

Then, it happened. The official Baylor financial aid package arrived, and Ryley had qualified for a second scholarship that was even bigger than the first! Suddenly the price of Baylor (while still requiring some loans) was much more do-able. In fact, it was more affordable than SPU. 

It was a miracle. No other word for it. God had answered our prayers.

Ryley came and showed me the financial aid package, and I hugged her, tears streaming down my cheeks. 

"Oh, Mom. Are you crying? It's okay," she said.

"Oh, sweetie, I'm crying because I'm overwhelmed at God's goodness and love. We didn't even know this scholarship existed!"

We called Ryan at work and shared the exciting news with him. 

And that's how we got from 5,300 colleges, to one. And wouldn't you know it? It's smackdab in the middle of Texas. ;-)

Never underestimate what God can do.

The Runaway Train

This is, undoubtedly, a unique time in our lives—a suspenseful and eventful chapter in our story.

And as someone who so faithfully chronicled my daughter’s early childhood on this very blog, I feel a nagging sense of guilt for staying quiet now.

This is it—this is the final stretch that we’ve been dreading since the moment our precious baby Ryley entered the world. We’re standing on the caboose of a runaway train, watching the looming canyon grow closer and closer, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. We can try to sneak in last-minute life lessons here and there, or say, "Hey, have we ever taught you how to (fill-in-the-blank)," but at this point, it kind of feels too late. It’s in God’s hands now. When the train hits the cliff, she’ll sail into her future—protected by Him alone.

The thickening plot in Ryley’s life story is not unlike a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book: all the other plot points to come and all the characters she will meet are hinged upon some pretty big choices she's making right now. Will she do her virtual homework or not? Will she waste her asynchronous class time on TikTok or will she apply for scholarships? Will she go to college? If so, will it be in Seattle? Will it be in Texas? Will it be 45 minutes from home? What will her future be? I wonder ...

I’ve always taken great consolation in my ability to express myself through writing. But over the last few months, I’ve had nothing. Just overwhelming awe and pride at her beautiful spirit—mixed with fear about how she’ll ever hear her alarm clock go off without us. Ryan is convinced we’ll need to live within 10 minutes of her college so that we can drive her to class or work while she ties her shoes and applies her makeup in the front seat. 😉

This indecision about college and the anxiety surrounding where she’s going to be in six months is beyond my brain capacity. Our entire household feels on edge. I'm coining the term "virtual senioritis" to describe her mental state. My emotions vacillate from one minute to the next: viewing her as a competent almost-adult, yet still seeing my sweet baby ... feeling excitement for her, yet feeling extreme sadness for me. I don’t think there was a day in January or February that Ryan or Ryley didn’t barge into my home office and see mascara running down my face.

When she told me she wanted to stay home and go to a state school here in Colorado, I knew she was saying it out of fear of going far away. I responded, “If that’s where God wants you to go, that’s fine. But don’t make that decision because you’re afraid of going out of state. Don’t make a decision based on fear.” And I thought, What am I doing? She just said she wants to stay close to you! Why are you telling her to go?

Because I’m almost 100-percent certain it's the right thing for her—to forge her own path.

I told her months ago that, though it was hard to see it then, at some point she would just know where she should go. Just like every other decision in our lives, God would make it clear, and He would give her peace. And now, she feels a strong pull toward a college that wasn’t even on her radar before November, and we wait (quite impatiently) for that coveted acceptance letter. The anticipation and anxiety can make you crazy, and everything is made even more complicated by the pandemic and the uncertainty of whether classes will be held in person. It’s hard to plan even the basics of your future when the very fabric of normal life itself seems to have unraveled.

After the sounds of her various Ryley-noises have bounced off our walls for almost 18 years … after she’s literally filled every square inch of our home with her personality, her hair, her boundless energy, her love … How the heck are we supposed to live without her? How is Ryan supposed to teach at the school without her poking her head in his classroom and dumping her heavy backpack on a desk before flitting off to after-school activities? How are we supposed to fill our evenings? Will we even remember to eat?

The truth is, we’ve been empty-nesting for some time now. When she got her driver’s license 18 months ago, a friend told me that this is when it starts. She’s already been creating a life for herself at work, in her youth group, with her friends. But always, after being away for a few hours, she comes home—and tells us all about it, leaving a trail of her belongings from the front door all the way down to the family room (while often bearing Starbucks drinks for her dear ma and pa). Soon, she won’t. Maybe she’ll text us. If we’re lucky, she’ll call. It will be a quiet existence, I think. Maybe we’ll pursue some of our budding hobbies—gardening for me and a forge for Ryan. More reading, perhaps. More travel. Whatever this new existence looks like, it will definitely have less of the physical presence of Ryley. And that makes me sad.

Just like I did when I was pregnant and scared to death of childbirth, sometimes I have to remind myself of where I fit in the big picture. Every human being on the planet is the result of a pregnancy and childbirth. I convinced myself 18 years ago that if billions of women could give birth, I could do it, too. In the same way, I realize that every adult on the planet (well, all adults living on their own, anyway) had to grow up and leave their parents behind at some point. I did it. Ryan did it. Our parents did it. Of course we’re not so self-involved to think that what we’re going through is anything new.

It’s the natural order of things—the circle of life.

“I just can’t believe we’re at the end,” Ryan said in the midst of a somewhat emotional talk he and I had one evening.

Oh—not the end of our parenting, of course. Just the end of the "day-to-day." The end of her childhood—which, my goodness, has been a lot of fun.

Truthfully, we want her to go and be all the things she wants to be and do all the things she wants to do. Nothing would make us prouder than having raised her to be self-sustaining, self-sufficient, and confident. But I also remember how after my first semester at college, I returned home for Christmas, and everything felt different. Because I was different. That knowledge creeps around in my head, reminding me that even when she comes home, it won't be the same.

Part of me wants to just soak up this precious remaining time and not worry about finding words for it. But I know, deep-down, that I have to write it. This is how I process my deepest feelings and come to terms with them. It’s just me and my emotions, fighting it out with words. Not even the pandemic affected me enough to inspire me to write about my personal introspection. 

But this? Of all the parts of her story thus far, this is the most important one. This is the part where she flies.

Stay tuned.