It’s been a long time, I know.  It’s amazing how much has happened this month and how such drastic changes can swirl you into plans of action, leaving other things, like blogging, to sit upon the shelf.  In September, my husband and I went to Pennsylvania to visit a friend and her partner.  While there, I kept getting the sense that my friend was pregnant, and she had the same sense, too, but the test came out negative.  Two weeks after we returned home, we found out that our suspicions were, in fact, correct.  In that moment I knew my life was about to change…I sensed it…but I had no clue HOW it would change.  My husband wanted to move there from the moment he saw Pennsylvania.  My friend and I don’t like being separated by distance, so naturally, we’d like to be near one another.  But, of course, I had grad school to attend to and I wasn’t entirely keen on living close to only a Wal-Mart when I am used to living within minutes of everything I like to have access to (Whole Foods, Target, TJ Maxx, Costco, Ross).  Something in me stirred though, and I wasn’t listening.

For months I ignored that feeling.  I have grad school coming up…a DOCTORAL PROGRAM.  Who passes that up?  Who does that?  It’s in a place that I don’t want to live — extremely high cost of living, the highest unemployment rate in the United States, high crime rates, and tropical, humid weather.  None of it appealed to me, but it was my dream and it was only five years.  Only five years?  Are you listening to yourself?!  FIVE YEARS.  That is a hell of a long time to be in a place you loathe, where you would likely struggle financially, and for the sake of…what?  Again, I ignored the feelings, the thoughts.  I ignored my husband’s pleas to leave Florida, well, at least as far as he knew.  Inside, I prayed for guidance and I told God/The Universe/Destiny/Fate (whatever you want to call it), “If I am not meant to do this, you’re going to have to give me a huge, unmistakable sign.  I need 100% reassurance that leaving this behind is what I am supposed to do here.”

And I got the sign.  Several of them, actually.  My friend had a really horrible time with her first child — the post-partum depression was nearly crippling.  Her circumstances were vastly different than they are now, but the risk for post-partum is huge and with her psych history and current lack of emotional support, she told me that she needed me to be there, if only for the birth and a couple of weeks after.  What she wouldn’t allow herself to say, for the sake of supporting my dreams, was that I needed to be there to help her weather the storm, regardless of how long it took.  Sign number one.  Sign number two was an eery sense followed by dreams of the act that I sensed.  I saw my friend, holding her new baby, both of them deceased.  Literal, figurative, whatever.  That was all I needed.  I kept having the same dream, and all psychological theories aside, I know when my gut is telling me something and I know what happens when I don’t listen to my gut.  There were other signs, too, but those two were the ones that resonated within me daily.

Earlier this month, while my husband and I were driving to Costco, I was silent.  We pulled into a parking spot, I turned off the car, and I just sat there.  “We have to move to Pennsylvania.  I’m not going to Miami for school.”  He smirked and replied, “I knew you’d come around.”  We talked for over an hour in that parking lot, making plans for our unplanned, unrehearsed, off-the-beaten-path future.  Ironically, when I finally conceded to that overwhelming feeling within me and I made the choice, I felt an overwhelming peace and comfort.  It felt right.  I called my friend and told her and plans began to unfold seamlessly.

We’re moving in with my friend and her boyfriend (who has the emotional IQ of a tack and is so devoid of relating to a woman on any level that I often want to lobotomize him, hoping that maybe less of a brain would at least make him teachable).  We’re selling everything we own and shipping our “close to the heart” items and much needed things via UPS.  We’re taking all six of our cats* and our dog and driving up to Pennsylvania just a few days after I graduate.  I’ve applied to Master’s programs in that area for the Fall semester and I’ve been researching jobs.  So far, things seem to be falling into place.

What others might see as insane, I am completely at peace with.  I know this is what I’m meant to do.  I’m not sure what the future holds, but if I’ve learned nothing else in my life, I’ve learned to trust my instincts.  Since I do not have any family that I claim (more on that, later), this friend and a few chosen others, ARE my family.  I’ve spent my entire life wanting to belong in a family, and I actually have that offered to me, now.  Family or a career?  In retrospect, the choice is clear, but at the time, I simply couldn’t see it.  Here’s goes nothing.  And everything.

Wish me luck.  🙂 Continue reading →