Dear Mom,

Here I am at home, hundreds of miles from you, waiting for a few more days to pass until I board a plane to come help.  “Help.”  I put that in quotes because I don’t know if I will be “help.”  I will be bossy.  I will be blunt.  We’ll argue.  We’ll cry.  But I have faith we’ll get through this.  Because that’s who you are.  Not who I am.  Who you are.

At various times when my husband has been thinking of job searching in other parts of the country, he comes to the dinner table and says something along the lines of, “But I know you don’t want to move.”  I tell him no, I could move tomorrow.  Pack up and go.  Because that’s how I was raised.  He doesn’t believe me, but I’ve asked friends who grew up in the military or with similar stories and they agree.  We’re homeless.

At some point in time, a therapist asked me when I stopped making friends.  Without a moment’s pause, I said, “Sixth grade.”  It was said matter-of-factly, without blame, because by that time I had children.  I understood my childhood better because I was a parent. 

Our childhood taught us to be glass half full people.  I never understood being left behind until I had lived somewhere long enough to know neighbors who then moved away.  Being left behind hurts in a whole different way, but it still hurts. 

We were taught first impressions were the most important and I will never tell my children that.  It’s true, don’t get me wrong.  It’s very true.  But growing up, being told that meant once again, I was the new kid.  It got old.  It got painful. 

Moving teaches you to look forward, always forward.  Glass half-full, you know.  Things went to ‘storage’ or were given away and promised to be replaced.  By the time you were somewhere new, they were forgotten.  Until they weren’t.  I still miss my Big Wheel.  I know.  I was 4.  But still.

And while it teaches you to look forward, looking forward too far seems silly.  Where will you be in ten years?  I don’t know.  Wherever I am.  Do I have the right to dream that far?  That concretely?  It drives my poor husband nuts that I struggle with this.  I’m trying to get better. 

There’s a bestselling book out there about purging a house.  You look at an item and ask if it gives you joy.  “Do you give me joy?” you ask a vase, a blanket, a pair of shoes.  If it does, you keep it.  If it doesn’t, you get rid of it.  If it’s something that did once, but doesn’t any longer, you take a picture of it, thank it and get rid of it.  This obviously doesn’t apply to teenagers.  Those you keep, no matter what.

So, Mom, you’ve moved again.  And we’re at this point because Dad isn’t quite Dad anymore.  He still gives us joy so we get to keep him, but he’s not quite himself.  That’s where I come in, with all the life lessons you’ve taught me.

We will look forward, not backward.

We will celebrate the items that give you joy and ask ourselves if the other things still do, or did once.  We will then ask, then, if there is room.

We will forget first impressions.  We will instead try to embrace practicality.

Most of all, I will do my best to honor the strength you showed us, taught us, impressed upon us. 

In the movie “Inside Out” there is a scene where Riley, the 11 year old daughter returns home after running away.  Her family has just moved to San Francisco, a place vastly different from her home in Minnesota, and far, far away from her friends, her life, her comfort.  Worried beyond belief, her parents open the door to find runaway Riley on the doorstep.  Their daughter is distraught, heartbroken, and hurting.  They kneel down and hug her.  They listen, they share, they comfort, but never do they apologize or say they made a mistake.  Because they didn’t.  Riley’s parents did what you, Mom and Dad, did.  You moved us because it meant a better future.  It meant you could provide for us.  You could give us a good life.  Give us amazing experiences.  You moved us because you loved us.

It took me having kids to understand that you also moved yourself, too.  And when you moved us, you put aside your hurt to start us all over again and again and again.

Therein lies strength.  Great, powerful, impressive, inspiring strength.

I often think I channel too much of Grandma Schollett.  But I’m sorry, Mom.  You are to blame for a lot of this, too. 

So I get on a plane on Wednesday to come help however I can.  And I will do my best to remember what it was like to be that girl, the new girl, scared, sad, hurting, lost, because I think that might be a little bit where you are.  Or where we all are.  This is new.  This is scary.  This is hard.  But we will dip into the strength that kept us going and together – your strength – and I will tell you that first impressions are crap but family is everything and we’d be nothing without you. 

See you soon.  Love, Katy