Time Doesn't Just Fly, It Makes the Jump Into Hyperspace

I was honestly surprised when I realized my last posting was in December of 2008. There are a couple of reasons for that--one obvious and another maybe not so much. The obvious reason was because the election was over and that had been my main focus. The not-so-obvious one is that four weeks later we were unpacking and setting up house in Phoenix, AZ and, well, I was just a little bit busy with that for awhile. I may have missed a prime opportunity by not chronicling our move and the adjustments that have had to be made. But those adjustments were (and still are) much more difficult than I imagined they would be. I knew I would miss our kids and grandson, along with dear, close friends with whom we had experienced so much happiness and some sadness. I also left I job I loved at a location I loved where I worked with people I considered dear friends. And I left my siblings and father who went from being a few hours away by car to a few hours away by plane.

Fifteen months later I realize that I made a huge mistake in thinking the holes in my heart created by the loss of all of the above could be/would be filled with what I'd find in Arizona. The emotional mechanics of the heart are not set up in such a way that pieces lost can be easily replaced. The friendships we had in Wisconsin were the result of years of working and playing together. Driving somewhere for a weekend is much less expensive that flying somewhere for a weekend. Finding a job in a large metropolitan area during an economic downturn is difficult and often disappointing and demoralizing. And perhaps the hardest lesson of all has been that when you make a move of this distance, the person you were to others stays behind, but the person you carry around inside of you comes along. I would have liked it to be the other way.