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:
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. 💕
Posts
