I gazed out of the car window, trying not to sigh audibly. The landscape was dismal and gray, no semblance of sun. When we left Atlanta that morning, the airplane rose gracefully over fields of fuchsia crepe myrtle and creamy silk magnolia blooms winking among the dark waxy leaves. Spring arrives early in the South, waltzing beautifully in after short, mild winters.

But I was no longer in the South. I was home. In Michigan.

…in March.

Everything was weary, from the clouded sky to the dead ground to the haggard, frustrated face of the puffer-coat swathed woman who had snapped at my children as we shivered in the cold, awaiting my husband’s arrival.

The drive to my husband’s hometown, what was to be our new hometown, was mercifully brief. I looked up at the gray trees and tried to imagine them as they would be in Michigan spring, two months hence. Delicate green and yellow leaves, flecked birch bark, the distinct sweetness of fragile Michigan warmth in the air. A bit of white on the dormant trees caught my eye and I smiled. Perhaps it had snowed. Our young kids would love the snow. Sledding, skiing, building snowmen; these were their inheritance. Maybe this would all be ok.

“I laid down a life-long shackle: fear.”

My snow, my sweet, savior snow was waving at me. Flapping, really.

If you have not been to the frozen north, let me tell you, snow should neither flap nor wave. A groan of disgust passed my clenched lips as I realized the white adornment on the branches was not snow. It was trash. Highway trash, grasping to dead, gray branches.

“What’s up?” asked my good husband, careful of my feelings.

“Nothing.” Nothing was up. That was a true answer. A passive-aggressive answer, sure, but true. The life I had created for myself out of the depths of baby blues, three cross-country moves, and an ocean of anxiety and self-doubt, was back in Atlanta. The world-renowned choir with whom I sang, the blog I wrote for them, my music studio that I built and grew myself. Friends who spoke of Brahms and intonation, the meaning behind the minor third and why the timpani pulsed like that. Dreams I thought I had abandoned to diapers and dusting had been resurrected in Atlanta. Now sacrificed for the big move Back Home.

A place where trash hung from the trees.

The exit loomed, and I swallowed back my tears. We would be with the extended family soon. They were thrilled that we were coming home. My pouting needed to stay in the car.

A year and a half later, we’re here and happy. We did move to his hometown, a veritable Bedford Falls with cute little stores and friendly folk. Determined to live in the city proper, we found that more sarcifices needed to be made. We wanted to walk through the neighborhood under the giant oaks until the sweet little downtown opened up before our eyes. Visions of leisurely strolls to the ice cream store, daily walks among the old Victorians, sailing up the high street with bags of groceries hanging from the handlebars of our bikes swirled in our heads. This was the life we wanted to create. The price was high taxes and astronomical dollars per square foot. So the good husband and I made a deeply-debated, mindful, mutual choice:

We downsized.

The home we chose is two-thirds smaller than the one we left in Atlanta. Seventy percent of our suffocating pile stuff was excised to the donation pile or the dump. In a shocking departure from American consumer expectations, we decided to spend significantly less than we made. More on all of this to come, but let me tell you: I feel unburied.

Since the move, we’ve been to so many family birthdays and hugged our nephews so many times and not once missed the thirteen-hour drive from Atlanta to celebrate the holidays with Michigan family. For this, I am grateful. And there’s something about coming home. Living in a place where you instinctively know how to be, where you inherently understand the stranger walking beside you.

We quite literally put aside much of our baggage when we moved back to Michigan. And it’s true: I laid down parts of my life that I loved to move back home. I also laid down a life-long shackle: fear. I find I no longer care whether I should do something, or try something, or make something, or if I’m qualified or good enough. I don’t care to seek permission from some ephemeral authority before I create. Life is short and changes quickly. And we all only get one. The question is, what are we brave enough to make?

I invite you along on this journey to create the lives we want to live. I can’t promise life-changing philosophies or consummate advice. I can promise spell-checking, sarcasm, and sincerity. If this is your jam, please follow along. I’ll be posting every other Tuesday. In the meantime, I’ll be here editing my first novel, preparing for my voice lessons, tweeting, breaking my back in yoga, loving on my family, working in the public schools, and chasing my crazy dog. Thank you for reading. See you on Tuesday.

Photo by Saital, used under Creative Commons license.