If you have followed me for any length of time you would know that I despise change yet right now, my life is full of changes. No, it’s not THE change (aka menopause), although that would fit perfectly with my blogging history, but it’s a BIG change. Jason came home from attending the Catholic men’s conference in Oklahoma and said, “We’re moving to Oklahoma!”
Wait, what?? Don’t I get a say? Why would an Oklahoman be against moving back to her home state? I was and it was shocking to my husband. I couldn’t predict the events that would snowball following this announcement. He had even looked at a home while he was down there.
I wanted to move to Oklahoma about four years ago. At that time, my husband was against it. There was no way he was going to retire from police work. But in those four years he went from, “I am not qualified to do anything else,” to “I’ll find work that will support us.” He couldn’t be a police officer in Oklahoma because they have an age limit. I’m not sure how they get around the age discrimination but after age 45, you can’t join the police force. This isn’t about age, physical fitness, or qualifications; it’s about paying into their pension system. They force retirement at age 65 and you need to pay in 20 years so with simple math, you can’t join after age 45.
Four years ago I wanted to move to Oklahoma to be closer to my parents so I could help them on their 10-acre farm. They were doing well but some aspects were suffering and I know they wanted a beautiful piece of property. They needed some help and I wanted to provide it but since my husband wasn’t ready, we couldn’t move. Now he was ready and I wasn’t.
There were two major reasons.
- My parents had moved to Texas two years ago and live next to one of my sisters (nevermind that they lived near my other sister in Oklahoma) so I was no longer feeling obligated to help.
- Our parish family here in Colorado.
Number two was, and still is, the most difficult. I never had imagined how my life would change in the four years since we have joined the parish. Our parish has endured controversy as well so it’s not been a honeymoon being there. I also just wanted to be a “nobody” at the church. We came from a huge parish where I was also a nobody yet we were heavily involved in ministries there. Our new parish was much smaller but large enough to stay under the radar…so I thought. I had no idea of the amount of people who love us until we said we were moving. It makes moving so much more difficult.
What’s interesting is four years ago I wanted to move but was unable to and that pained me. Four years ago we switched parishes and I have grown so much in those four years. I’m sure this was God’s way of helping me through all the difficulties that came in the last four years. My parents moved to Texas after “the family” ruptured. It has taken two years to heal from that and we are all still healing yet we are still ruptured and will likely never be put back together. So when my husband said, “We’re moving to Oklahoma,” I became sad. My sister lives there and it would be fantastic to be close to her but even that relationship wasn’t a sure thing. So much seemed to be on the line.
Though I firmly believe God had plans for us. Only a few weeks after his trip to Oklahoma were we scheduled to make a trip to Texas as a family to see my parents for the first time since our family ruptured. There was one really big issue…the weather. It seemed Colorado was expecting a serious winter storm and all our plans were about to be tossed out the window. Every route we had planned for getting to Texas was part of the storm…except one.
The route East through Kansas to Oklahoma.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I thought. We had plans to see my sister on the way back from Texas but it seemed we had to see her first. And, we would have to leave a day early or face being snowed in. This wasn’t a small storm. This was a 2ft of snow kind of storm. So we took it in stride and made last minute changes to get away from the storm. As we drove off, the storm had started to do it’s thing and it was snowing. We made it to Kansas safely and stopped for the night.
Since we had an extra day, we felt it was God’s way of blessing us with the gift of seeing Sister Wilhelmina in Gower, MO at the Benedictine Monastery. So we made the side trip out that direction. It was truly a blessing. The monastery is beautiful. We only had about an hour there as we had to get to Oklahoma by a certain point but I wanted to stay so much longer and experience Mass there. Hopefully one day we can do that.
When we made it to Oklahoma, the first thing my sister said was, “Now you can see your new house.” I knew she was just joking but we didn’t even have a realtor so how would we see the house? It just so happened they were having another open house. So we saw it. Kids and all. Of course, the kids loved it and wanted to buy it. I wasn’t so sure. It was beautiful but it didn’t have a double oven (which is the ONE thing I didn’t want to compromise on), there were powerlines out front (every home on land seems to have them), and the master toilet wasn’t in it’s own space (I’m spoiled).
The other thing was, we didn’t even have our home on the market and this home had just entered the market so there was no way this home would be available by the time we were ready. Everyone was in love with it though and I felt bad that we would likely not have the opportunity to buy this home. It would be almost two months before we were ready.
By the time our trip was over, Jason was certain we were moving and told our oldest son as much. This turned out to be one of the most difficult changes for me because as soon as he heard we were serious, he dropped the bomb. “I’m not moving to Oklahoma with you.”
Many would thing that he wanted to stay here, but we knew that wasn’t his plan. He has almost zero ties here. He wasn’t active in the church, he tried to date several times but that backfired on him (even with the trad Catholics), and the family here he knew and loved seemed to have changed so much they were unrecognizable to him. So he was ready to establish a life somewhere else. Colorado was too expensive for a young man to start out on his own.
His place of choice…Texas! My mothers heart was crushed. I had been planning for him to leave us since the moment he was born but we are never ready for it. Ever! I had dreamed of him living with us until he got married. I had dreams of watching him court a young woman and sitting in front of us in the pews during Mass. So many of my dreams disappeared in those seven words.
The decision was made in April and he had moved out the first week of May. In that one month’s time, he managed to secure a high paying job at an Audi dealer in Dallas and an apartment. It was happening, my son was leaving. That’s a whole other blog though. We’re still enduring changes and the testing of my patience and commitment to God.
More to come!