My Life In Transition

A place to call home.

Modern life is often a series of transitions. Growing up we transition from elementary to middle to high school. Then we transition to college and/or out of our house (in no particular order). We transition to the “real world” and get “real jobs.” We transition to married life. Then we transition to having kids, watching them grow up and leave the house. Eventually we transition to being old with no kids at home, maybe retirement or a nursing home. Finally we make the great transition to whatever lies beyond death.

I don’t know about you, but all this transition is too much. To make matters worse we have created a world in which all this transition often involves uprooting our lives and moving to new towns, new people, new jobs, new school, etc. I like meeting new people and seeing new places, but there comes a point when you realize that there is value in putting down roots and transitioning in the same place for a while… a long while.

In a couple weeks we’re moving off the farm and into town. That’s right. We’re staying put. I don’t have a job yet (though i hope to soon), but we have a lot of community and support from people who love us. We’re moving into the neighborhood near our church (2 blocks from our meeting house in fact). We’ll be neighbors with someone from our church and within walking distance of half of our congregation.

I’m planning on putting in a little garden, starting compost and building a little A-frame coop for the backyard. Trying to bring some of the farm with me into town. It’s still going to be different. We’re living in an area of Waco that has the largest concentration of social service organizations. There’s a reason for that. The neighborhood has been low income for a long time and we want to be a positive presence there. We hope to get to know our neighbors. We hope they’ll teach us a little Spanish and maybe we can help with their English.

Life is about transitions. They call it a journey and all that. Too much of our time is spent trying to win the race and fly solo instead of slowing down to help someone or catching up to some friends just ahead. I’m glad I’ve had the time to slow down somewhat at the farm.

I hope to catch up to my writing here on the blog even as life will surely get busier with a new job. This home that I’ve carved out of the vastness of cyberspace has been a place for me to process my thoughts and experiences. It’s been somewhere for me to keep track of myself and remember all those things that pop into my head while pulling weeds or mowing the lawn or driving the tractor.

There’s something important about writing something longer than 140 characters. I hope I have more to say than that and I hope it’s something worthwhile. Regardless… you’ll know where to find it.