Change

A whole lotta change has been one of the few constants throughout my life.

Come this June, I will have moved 10 times in the past 9 years (and that doesn't count the times I temporarily "moved home" for the summer while in college).

In the past four years of being a nurse, I have had 3 different jobs (thanks to all the moving we've done!). 

So moving again, getting new jobs (one for me, one for Garrett), and having another baby on top of it all should be no big deal by now.

Funny thing is, I am one of those people who struggles a little with change.

Hello, I had my hair long for nearly 10 years because I was afraid of a change to its length! (Are you wondering how I am managing to get through life!?  Me too.)

Of course, once I chopped my hair off, I loved it.

And of course, as soon as I settle into a new apartment, city, state, job, or whatever, I get used to the change and love it as well.

But it's still hard to make big changes. 

Even when I'm a little excited about them......

I feel SO READY to get on with the next chapter of our lives: being done with school, settling down somewhere, having my husband finally doing what he really loves.  I'm especially excited to be moving so close to so much of my family and Garrett's family!  I never thought we'd end up moving back to Alaska......and now I'm planning play dates with Kenadie's Christensen and Willardson cousins, talking to my sister about hiking and blueberry picking this summer, and getting ready to do some gardening with my mom in a few short months.  

CAN. NOT. WAIT.

So with my excitement over these changes combined with full-blown nesting,

I have spent the past few days cleaning, organizing, getting rid of an amazing amount of stuff that somehow fit into our apartment and storage room, rearranging furniture, pulling out and organizing baby clothes, making lists of what we'll be selling on Craigslist, and even setting up the Pack-N-Play and rocking chair in our room for baby's arrival. 

I don't know why I'm doing all this when my due date is still a good 2+ months away and we won't move for nearly 3 months. 

Maybe it's just the excitement of moving home.

Maybe it's the anticipation of the whirlwind of events all happening in June and I want to be prepared.

Either way, our apartment is sparkly clean and it feels good to get rid of all the unnecessary "stuff" that we have kept.  I feel so accomplished.

And then last night while I was getting Kenadie ready for bed, I got teary-eyed because the rocking chair is no longer in her room where I always rock and sing to her.  

I realized that she's growing up and pretty soon she will no longer be the baby anymore

and that made me a little sad. 

Is that ridiculous!?  It just feels like a big change, even though it's one I look forward to.

Then I looked at the bareness of our small bathroom closet after cleaning it out and also got teary-eyed realizing that in a few months it will be completely bare when we're gone.

I'm definitely looking forward to moving to a bigger and hopefully nicer and newer space (this apartment drives me nuts 80% of the time).....but this old, little apartment is also the only home Kenners has known and we have a lot of memories here.

What a bittersweet change it will be to leave it all behind.....

 

Oh change, I look forward to you.

I even crave you.

And then when you stare at me in the face, I'm suddenly not so sure about you anymore.

Because you aren't the most comfortable thing in the world.

But necessary nonetheless.

And even after an embarrassing display of waterworks last night over a rocking chair and bare closet that probably caused my husband to worry about my sanity (can we partially blame the hormones for that one?), 

I'm still glad that you are ever present,

because you are part of what makes life so great.