It starts with just a generally unsettled feeling. I’m restless all the time. My brain is whirring like a maxed out hard drive running too many programs. I can’t pinpoint the restlessness at first, but it’s familiar. I know I’ve felt this way many times before. And after several weeks, the hard drive slows down, and I can name what I’m feeling.
Though at this point in my life I call Nebraska home, for many years, I claimed no hometown. Such is the life of a military dependent—my first two moves as a human aren’t even registered in my memory, I was so young. The third move, I remember stepping out of a hotel room in Albuquerque, New Mexico to the sight of hundreds of hot air balloons, but even that memory is fuzzy—do I remember it, or do I remember my mom telling the story of it?
All other moves are etched in my memories though. Listening to my first Amy Grant cassette on the road to Alabama. Staring out the car window trying not to cry on the road back to Nebraska—we’d only been in Alabama 10 months, how could I possibly be sad to leave? Sulking in my dad’s truck on the way to Montana a month before my 16th birthday.
The moves in my adulthood weren’t quite as fraught, as they were my choices, but there was always a mix of excitement, fear of the unknown, and sorrow at what I’d left behind.
Even though the family put down stakes in Nebraska in 1994, I bounced out of the county three times in 12 years. In 2008, I came back, and I’ve been in the same apartment for 10 years.
For someone who spent 35 years moving every 2-4 years, 10 years in one space is a long time.
And that’s the restlessness, I am sure.
I love my job—it really is my dream job, a job that sometimes I can’t believe I was able to carve out. I’m teaching everything I’ve ever wanted to teach. And I’m close to having 20 years of service in this district. Who leaves a dream job so close to having 20 years with an organization, a benchmark that typically brings with it financial benefits?
Yet the restlessness.
Maybe all I need is a cross-town move, a new space, new furniture, new surroundings.
Maybe I need a new city, new state, new country.
Maybe I just need a new hair color and new clothes.
But of this I am sure: my bones and my soul need a change.
Anyone have any ideas?
Utah
I’m late to reading this post but I totally hear you. I think moving regularly wires a brain for change and Challenge. That’s one reason I felt teaching was the best job for me – always new and different. I think a move can help – like you said just across town so you have to shop in New places and meet new neighbors but Keep the dream job. Or maybe go big and get a new job at a new school or maybe same school but new assignment. Or new hobby/goal? Maybe just a fun trip to look forward to.
Sarah, I think where I’ve landed for now is to just move across town. Some wise friends told me that I probably shouldn’t be making huge decisions with pandemic brain and I am starting to agree with them lol