Homesick for a Place That was Never Intended to be "Home"

Four years ago, if someone would have told me it would be harder for me to leave Virginia than it was for me to leave Utah, I would have called him insane. He (or she) would not have been. I fell madly in love with Virginia. I won't lie, it wasn't love at first sight but it grew slowly and passionately over time. It was inevitable that it would end, I knew our stay there was limited. The pull of family has always been strong for us and it's very important to both of us that our child know her family.

When I was at the height of wanting out of DC, Dan called me and asked what I thought about potentially trying Vernal, just resetting a bit, get a good chance to get completely out of debt, have time with family, and all the other bells and whistles he touted on that call. My response was this: I would give *anything* to get out of DC, ANYTHING! But not that, NOT that.

You see where that got me? I temporarily warmed up to the idea (I guess I really did want out of DC *that* bad) and made room for the idea to be further explored. The second it became a "decision," I knew that was not what I had wanted. And now, here I am. Longing for the life I had, the life we had created for the three of us, the friends we made, the routines we set, the space we had but maybe not the insanity of the last few months. I am not sure of the trade off's or what's better or worse. I just know I desperately miss what I know I'll never get again for *my* family. But now we have our families around us, so we'll just see where we go from here.

I'll be posting a bit backwards for a while, I have a lot to get out there but needed to get this out there first so we'll just start here and go back over the last couple weeks.