Tonight especially it felt like Tucson was really home, and not just a place where we are waiting until it's time to take off someplace else.
I realize as I write that that it goes against spiritual values to say that this place, or even this world, is my home. What I suppose I mean is that I feel like myself finally; like I have a place and a life here, and am not just waiting for something else.
Perhaps this is misguided; truly, I should not feel at home anywhere because indeed I am only a sojourner, a pilgrim. That's true. I hope my sense of connection has more to do with contentment than commitment, but I will need to think this over more.
In a conversation a few weeks ago, a teacher pointed out to me that it is usually the third year in to a new teaching gig that a teacher feels competent and successful. By then, he or she has had time to work out the kinks and adjust for error. That is true of my current experience; I am finishing my third year, and finally feel great about it. Yet, it is time to move on.
For someone like me who was moved around quite frequently as a child without a strong family connection, I fear the loss of stability for myself and my children if we were to move every few years. I know military people, for instance, have this reality, but they have a lot of support built into the institution which allows the families to adjust to these ever-changing circumstances (new house, new place, new school, new language?). For me, I didn't have that kind of strenth. I had to figure things out on my own, and an 8-year-old just can't do that. I learned some coping skills, for sure. In the long run, I learned that people come and go, and that faith and character remain. Yet there has always been a longing for home and stability and a sense that it ought to be so.
It scares me a bit that I am starting to feel comfortable. Somehow I feel like I am selling out by settling in. I am not sure how to accomodate this paradox that in relationships and stability we find peace and history and consistency, while at the same time realizing that such stability can numb me to other realities. I think I need to know that it is okay to feel like I've found my resting place in an actual place, and that, to me, doesn't sound like something someone with a lot of spiritual insight would say. I've never seen or known it. I'm not even sure it's what I ought to want. Largely, though, I start to feel like I am home again, and it makes me scared that I might just be passing through.
