What Ifs

In anyone's life, there are a lot of what ifs, I realize. I just happened to encounter a lot of my what if situations in the past 48 hours.

We are back from a little getaway that included a trip to the Indianapolis Children's Museum along with some major pool time, family time, and car time. Most importantly, however, it included a trip through Champaign, site of our college days (ironically not spent together...Joe's OLD), and then our life as a couple, growing our family together with a family of people who were not related to us by blood, but close enough to be. As I sat in our church (I still call it ours even though we have been gone from it for nearly 5 years), I only cried three times during the service. It was a really great one, don't get me wrong, but when you're sitting in the church where you met your husband, had your wedding, and had your first child baptized, you get a little nostalgic. Anyway, I found myself what-ifing...

What if we would have never left?
What if we never became farmers?
What if we still lived here?

As we pulled away from the town where we called home first, I found myself questioning every decision I had made in the past six years. Should I have quit a job that I loved? Should I have put Joe in the position to move closer to my family? What if? What if? What if?

Well, what if?

Isn't that what life is all about? Isn't it supposed to be full of questions and re-examinations and moments where you say, "Well, that was a mistake"?

Well, I don't believe that we made a mistake moving here. However, I do miss my friends and family and proximity to a great place to live and learn, but it's not like I'm unable to visit or to make the best of what I have here. My college days were amazing and challenging and life changing. My life as a young professional was satisfying and difficult and incredible. My church life in Champaign was life-altering, and our life as a young couple and then family surrounded by this great community of people made us the parents and the spouses we are today. But it was the experience of all of this that helped us make the decision to leave and try this out. It was knowing that even though we're gone, our friends there are still rooting us on and running up to us when we come back to visit. I should be grateful for the opportunities I had while we were there, not questioning whether I should go back and try to do it again.

It's been done.

As we drove into our driveway and walked into the familiar home, our home, I felt a calm. This is right. This is where we belong. We aren't becoming bizillionaires as farmers, nor are we doing everything right as parents or husband and wife or whatever, but I only have a few times when I think "WHAT DID WE DO?" now that we live out here.

I'm allowed to freak out once in awhile, right?

Anyway, there are always going to be times when I wonder about whether or not this life is right for us, but I will always remember that where I am now is and was our decision, one that we made as a family, and that we have made the right one.

Besides, what would I write about if I lived in town????