you know they say you can't go home again
but i just had to come back one last time
ma'am i know that you don't know me from adam
but those handprints on the front step, they're mine

i thought if i could touch this place or feel it
this emptiness inside me might start healing
out here it's like i'm someone else
thought that maybe i could find myself
if i could just come in i swear i'll leave
won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me

--miranda lambert--


a long week, but we're finally in the new house! a little more cleaning and we'll be done done DONE with the old house. i'm exhausted. moving is hard. it hurts and it's frustrating and the weather is never right. but we had friends who are rockstars, and a mother/in law who is a complete champ, and between us all we got it done.

sitting here tonight in the quiet old house they've bought, i can't help but feel something new beginning. my bed is up high again and the Cat and I are watching the moon, which is shining in my window at the perfect angle. i'm puzzling out the change. this is the first time in years that i've settled so fast after a change, usually i'm a nice little hot mess for weeks after. this is new.

there is some overturn at work and the momentum keeps stepping up. more and more work, and still i'm feeling on top of it. fast-paced is my pace and i'm thoroughly enjoying staying on top of it. thoroughly enjoying finding absent parents and getting kids enrolled in tribes, working with new people and different organizations.

my writing has gained my focus again. being published is a wholly validating experience. seeing my words, the letters i put in order on a page six years ago and finally got the courage to submit, seeing them in print where anyone can read them is both terrifying and amazingly exhilarating. my mom read it and cried. my SIL read it and cried. then she asked me to read it at the wedding. and that right there makes every word i've ever written, the hours i spent on this one poem, worth it. even if no one ever publishes my work again, that makes it worth it. but i think if i work at it and make the time for it, this could go somewhere. i've found a writing mentor and she's amazing. before this i wrote raw and scraped, no refinement or thought, and she is reigning me in, calming me down, forcing me to slow my pace. at the heart of it i love the words. love that i have no control over them. writing is just...what i do. no rhyme or reason, no explanation. it's that simple.

so once again i find myself on a branching path. i am not often wise or usually intuitive, but i have learned that forks in the road can come up when you least expect them. and those are the best ones to follow.