Turn Back

If anyone had asked me last week, and they did ask me last week, about moving, my response was this: "I'm sad, but I know it's the right thing, and I want to do it."

But today, well, not today. Today my response is, "I still know it's the right thing, but I'm sad and I don't want to do it."

Why is that? Sometimes you start down a path, and you turn back around because you see it isn't the right choice. But this isn't one of those times. This isn't a day that I get to say I won't. I have to say I will. I just don't want to, that's all.

Claire came to me in tears over it. And I wanted to tell her that really, I won't go. I'll stay and stay and stay forever. But the truth is, I can't stay forever. I was never meant to stay forever. None of us are. Some day she'll be eighteen, and she'll get into some fabulous school (like BYU), and she'll go away, too. It happens so much faster than any of us expects. One day we are learning how to multiply fractions and reading Charlotte's Web. And then out of nowhere, we are learning about Van Gogh while staring at Starry Night and trying to conjugate French verbs.

Life is just like that, and you have to go forward, even when you wish with all your heart that somehow you could just turn it all back and start at the beginning again. Which beginning, I am not sure. Maybe law school? Maybe Virginia? Maybe Annandale High School? Maybe undergrad? I just don't know. Maybe Texas? I'm not sure. But...now that I know what I know, I would feel wrong if I stayed. All I know is that my heart is breaking because I can't turn back.