Today marks an intriguing milestone in my life. I’ve lived 42 years and this is the longest I have ever lived in one place.

10 years.

Ten years ago, J and I were sweatin’ our booties off unload­ing a mov­ing truck to a house I had just seen. We had to make this move pretty quick so he bought it with­out me being here. I trusted him. He did good.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would plant family roots in this town. Both of my kids have grown up in this school dis­trict. For a Third-Culture Kid, this is almost painful. I won’t lie, I’m in com­plete angst that both my boys have never stepped foot out of this coun­try. It’s on my bucket list to fix…someday.

When we moved here, Old­man was 4 and super excited about start­ing Kinder­garten. Now he’s in High School.

Grem­lin was an 18-month crazy boy who wouldn’t stop peel­ing card­board pieces off the mov­ing boxes. He was still try­ing to mas­ter crawl­ing off the couch with­out face-planting. Now he face-plants oth­ers on the Ju-Jitzu mat.

It hasn’t been a very secure 10 years…I’ve felt the need to “run away” time and time again. But I didn’t. I just changed the color of my hair! 

I’ve had a week to think through this and I’m com­ing to terms with it. The Ozarks is a great place to raise a family…but I don’t want to lose sight of the road headed out of town, over the horizon.