So a week or so ago I decided I wanted to move out in the country. Like WAAAY out in the country. I started scouring through realtor.com for houses and property in Sweet Springs, Union, Gap Mills...all of those places where you can only get to deliberately--you never just stumble upon them by chance.
I think it was that first tinge of Fall in the air that had me feeling nostalgic, for lack of a better word. I love fall. I think it's because the fall reminds me of newness. Yeah, newness. Don't we all love newness? A new house. A new car. A new love. A new baby. A new pair of shoes. A new puppy. Don't we all love the feelings associated with newness? There is something scary and yet so exciting about stepping into the unknown.
I was married on August 23, 1997 and it was a cool August 23. I think it barely hit 70 degrees that day and then the following day we left for the mountains of Gatlinburg and of course it was cool down there, also. The following year, Riley was born in October. I associate a lot of my newness with Fall. When Riley was born, we were renting a single-wide trailer on about an acre of land. There were big Pine trees in our front yard and our yard was separated from the adjacent cattle pasture by just a barbed wire fence.
All I wanted to do while we were at that trailer was find a house of our own and move. We finally did 2 years later. Who would’ve ever thought that that short time in the trailer in the country would be one of the fondest memories I would ever have?
Kevin was working 10-hour shifts back then and driving almost 2 hours each way to work. That left me at home with a baby for 14 hours a day by myself. The strange part is that I don’t remember being tired or frustrated or anything remotely similar to the exhaustion that I feel these days. I remember swinging on the porch swing that was a hand-me-down from my grandparents. I would take Riley out there when he was a baby and swing him until he fell asleep and then go softly place him in his bed. That spring we hung a red baby swing from the old clothesline pole and Riley loved swinging for as long as I could push him back and forth. From my backyard I could hear the cows mooing and see rolling hills for as far as the eye could see. We had a sweet older couple that lived behind us. God has blessed us with the best of neighbors every single place we have ever lived. These people were good as gold. They would’ve done anything for us and as a young couple starting out with a new baby, their kind hearts were a welcomed blessing!
Kevin borrowed his dad’s riding mower when we moved out there. He tried to teach me to mow and occasionally I would hop on, but I preferred to watch him mow with Riley on his lap. I have pictures from that time at the trailer and it’s so funny to look back at them. We were so young! I mean we looked like babies ourselves--and I guess we were, essentially. I was just a mere 21 years old and Kevin was 26. Life was so simple back then. Simple and new. I videoed hours worth of Riley just sitting in his bouncy chair or laying in his crib. I had his pictures made every 3 months. And I enjoyed all of that and I had time for all of that.
We found a house and moved into a nice little neighborhood in Bluefield, VA less that 2 years after we moved into the trailer in the country. I was so excited to have our own house and I loved that little house. I loved our neighbors and there was a park in our neighborhood and I would take Riley in the stroller a couple times a week. Two years later we had Natalie and then I pushed a double stroller to the park. Kevin and I rode bikes and had a pull-behind cart for the kids. Life was great.
Less than 3 years after we bought our house in Bluefield, Kevin received one of his many lay-off slips. He worked in the coal industry, so that is the nature of the beast. When the coal is running, it’s running full-force. When it’s not, it’s not. With two kids, it was getting difficult to plan for the future while constantly dodging a lay-off slip. When the opportunity arose to leave the coal industry for the paper mill, we decided to go for what we thought would be more job security over pay and benefits. I still don’t think Kevin has made it up to what he was making at the coal tipple, and the benefits will never be as good, but he hasn’t collected unemployment in 6 years and for that we are grateful.
Moving to Covington brought with it a rental search once again. This time we had two children and a family dog. We needed a decent place to rent. That is a tall order in Covington! We ended up renting a house out in Moss Run and I loved it out there, too. Yep, the country once again. We tried to buy that house, but they wouldn’t sell it. It was time for us to move on after we sold our house in Bluefield and after just 5 short months in Moss Run, we moved into our current house.
This house has seen the birth of our third child, the start of preschool for 3 children and school for 2. It has seen 6 years of soccer, 3 years of splashing in the pool, two children learning to ride their bicycles without training wheels, 2 kids potty-trained, the exit of a cocker spaniel and the entrance of two black labs. It has housed Halloween parties, Christmas parties, summer barbeques and many sleepovers. We have shared a lot in the short six years that we have lived here and I love this little house and we have the greatest neighbors once again.
Life is still awesome, but kind of like the eye of a hurricane kind of awesome. It’s fast and furious and intense and you never know if it’s going to calm down and go on out to sea or if it’s going to hit shore and completely destroy everything in its path.
So all of that to say this…I think my infatuation with the country life is an intense yearning for life to be as it was when things were new and slow-paced and we were a few years younger and a lot more energetic and way more optimistic about things in general.
The truth of the matter is that things will never be that way again. It doesn’t matter if I move out to the country and try to slow it all down. It’s not going to work. Life will just leave me standing in that dusty old dirt road if I do. I will never be what I was yesterday or the day before or the year before or 10 years ago. It’s just not the way life works.
So I will stay here in my humble abode which is spitting distance from the city limits sign. I will be happy that it only takes me 5 minutes to cart the kids to scouts and soccer practice and grateful that they have a nice safe street to ride their bikes down. And I will keep my eyes open for a little piece of heaven and simplicity out in the country, but more importantly, I will keep my eyes open for those tiny moments of this hurricane of a life that leave me completely breathless.~ArG
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