We are Here. We are Home.

In the checkout line, the girl with the throw-back glasses, curiously blond hair and skinny jeans asked me if I had been painting. I don't know why I felt the need to tell her that yes, I had been and to confess that I hadn't taken a shower in two days. I told her I wanted to save the five dollars, but I wasn't part of the club yet, and could I please get a card, since I was going to be here a while.

She asked me where I came from, told me I needed to get in a different line to get the club card (the same one for the smokes). I told her Maine, and she said "wow, that's far." I swiped and signed and told the kids not to touch the candy or the toys or each other, in three separate rounds.

And the girl looked at me like maybe I was exotic for having lived in Maine or for painting white highlights in my hair. And like maybe she was thinking of trying it. But really, if you asked her, she was probably thinking, Gross. That lady hasn't showered in two days.

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We are here. We are home. The roller coaster of this past week is a story I won't fully tell in this space. I will just say that one week ago I was stressed to the point of feeling physically ill, breathing doubt through my nose, underwater.

I sat in the parking lot at Lowes on the phone with my mom, and I said, this is the hard part of the story. This is where I have to believe that God wrote this very scene, that there is meaning to all this character development. Because if not, then screw it, I'm going back to Maine. We'll take that dream job in Camden and buy a boat and Viking stove.

In the aisle of replacement toilet seats, I prayed that God would convince me I was supposed to be here, that someday it would all make sense, that someday this would be one of our most treasured stories to tell.

I thought I would have to keep going for months and possibly years, keep plugging away with all this damn character building before He would show me. But it's only been one week. And already, I know. This is where I am supposed to be.

We are here. We are home.

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A shout out to my mom, my friends Scott & Anna, my sisters Robin and Michelle, my brother-in-law Mark, and my nieces Aly and Kate for the enormous amount of help and support they provided to me over the past two weeks. They helped me SO much with the traveling, the kids, the rental house, the unpacking. I would never have made it without you guys. So thank you, thank you, thank you!

p.s. If you are wondering where my husband has been in all this, the answer is working and studying. He started his second residency over a month ago, jumping right back into the familiar 80 hour week schedule. So the kids and I were on our own for the past six weeks, including during the move. We all missed each other terribly, and are so happy to be living again under the same roof, if only for hours at a time in between shifts.