Life in Beta

Once upon a zillion years ago, when I was a kid, my parents had a ugly plaid hand-me-down couch. When they had the opportunity, they got rid of that couch and replaced it with a newer, more stylish version. According to my mother, I pitched a fit over it. I cried and begged them to keep the ugly plaid one. I just couldn’t deal with the change. I like familiar. I like comforting. Even if it’s ugly and plaid.

I got the news yesterday afternoon. I got the job.

I’m going home.

I was excited to call my parents and grandmother to tell them I was moving home. They were overjoyed. My friends back home were thrilled at my news too.

However, I also had to break the news to my friends here in Tennessee. And today came the task of telling my boss and coworkers who are, for the record, the most amazing people I’ve ever had the pleasure to have worked with.

I just hadn’t anticipated that in the three years I’ve been here, that Tennessee would ever come to feel this much like home to me, or that my friends here would become every bit as much family as my blood relatives are.

I’ve been on the verge of tears more times than I’d like to admit. There are so many people here that I care so very much about — probably more than those people will ever know — and I’m going to miss them terribly.

But, it’s a new chapter in my life.

My hometown was definitely the plaid couch. (I’d never call it ugly, but perhaps a bit dated and certainly set in its ways.) Three years ago, I moved to Nashville kicking and screaming. I knew it was going to be good for me, but it was scary and new and I didn’t want to face it. But I wasn’t given a choice and I got through it. Now life in Nashville has become broken-in and comfortable, and here I am returning to trusty ol’ plaid Erie, PA.

It should be a comfortable transition, right?

But maybe it’s me that’s changed. The plaid couch, though familiar, just doesn’t feel the same way it once did. I don’t know where I fit. I guess maybe that’s the part that’s most scary. I want home, but does home want me? I know exactly what my niche is here in my little part of Nashville. I don’t know where to even begin carving out my niche back home. I know I can’t step back into the old life I had there — I can’t and I wouldn’t want to.

Then again, that’s the exciting part too. I’m a new woman. This is a new start. I just can’t believe how fast it’s come along. I guess my only option is to just let the adventure begin…