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The Bittersweet Move Back to Nashville: July 16th

July 11, 2011 at 10:38 pm , by 

Seven months.

Yes, you did read that right.  No, this isn’t a rerun from March.  This coming Saturday on July 16th as Jack turns eight months old, we return to Music City for keeps.

Imagine you’re me.  You were raised in the Eighties and were taught that money isn’t everything but that being happy is.  You were constantly told that if you really believe, you can achieve your dreams.  So at age 29, you decide to choose happiness over money and move your wife and 3 week old son back to your hometown to be close to family.  You willingly choose less money and less busyness with the purest intentions.

Enter four months of unemployment, then living from savings despite eventually getting a job.  Then after eight months since moving, you come to the realization that it is not a choice to move your family back to Nashville, but simply the only option.

It’s ironic how it took me four months to find a job and how my wife was sent countless rejection letters for all the places she applied, never landing a job that would keep us from dipping into savings every month; yet in a matter of just a few days and few emails, both my wife and I have jobs lined up in Nashville where we will begin Monday, July 18th.

Our former employers are taking us back.  It’s that simple.  Granted, this means we have to put Jack in daycare.  We will barely see him on weekdays because by the time I drive him home from daycare, he will only be awake for an hour before it’s his bedtime.

So, how do I feel about this?  Bittersweet.

We came here truly believing that we would be spending the rest of our lives here; thinking it would be the last time we would have to unpack our things. And when it seemed our expectations were being threatened, we only tried that much harder to make this work.  But our resistance was futile.

As I have mentioned before, a married man can never stop thinking about his need to provide for his family. So imagine what kind of psychological toil this constant wondering has taken on my own sanity.  For the fact we will be able to pay our bills without dipping into what’s left of our savings; well, that’s more relieving than I can say.  But yes, we will have to move away from my family and they won’t see Jack as much as they used to.

He and his cousin were going to be attending the same school and be in the same grade.  Not now, though.  It’s only a 2 and a half hour drive, but still, things will be somewhat different.

By this point, I am nearly emotionless when it comes having to repack our lives again.  Because again, it’s not a choice to be made; it’s the only option.

So I am accepting my fate.  I was not meant to live in my hometown with my family.  Instead, I was meant to live and work in Nashville, one of my favorite cities in the world.

I am choosing to move forward and be positive about it.  There have been a lot of things we’ve missed tremendously about Nashville: Our church, our friends, our quirky restaurants, proximity to Country music stars, and surprisingly more than you would think, shopping for groceries at Publix, where shopping is a pleasure.

As much as I enjoyed growing up in my hometown and the great memories I always have, it has ultimately proven to be the wrong fit for the 2011 version of me, which includes my wife and son.  And that’s not my hometown’s fault.  It’s just that Nashville is simply where we belong.

My wife and I met there.  My wife was baptized there.  We got married there.  Our son was born there.  Heck, even this blog was born there.

One of our mutually favorite movies is Away We Go, starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph.  As they prepare for the birth of their first child, they travel to several cities to figure out where their new home as a family is.  It’s obviously very relatable for my wife and me.

After sticking it out this long, we were obviously more than willing to make this thing work in my hometown.  But now it’s time to return to where our home, as a family, is.

Need another pop culture reference?  This reminds me of the best TV show ever made (and that ever will be made), Lost.  Those who crashed on the island were “chosen” by the island for a purpose.  Even when six of them eventually found a way to leave and go back to their homes, they ultimately had to return because the island still needed them there.

For us, Nashville is the island.  We just need to watch out for those darn polar bears.

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dad from day one: Jack is Now Six Months Old, Officially Has Blue Eyes and Weighs 19.2 Pounds

Week 26 (6 months).

Despite the cliche, “they grow up so fast,” I will admit that these past six months have been the quickest six months of my life.  And yes, Jack has definitely sprouted up very quickly.  Six months ago my wife and I held a baby in our arms, with zero personal experience.  Now, we have no longer have a newborn, but instead an infant.  An infant who can eat ground up fruits, veggies, and grains- not just formula.  Who is attempting to crawl.  Who is outgrowing his original car seat.

And I’ve been waiting until Jack turned six months old to officially say what has been pretty obvious for a while now: Jack has blue eyes.  I know there was a possibility that his eyes could get darker up until this point.  I never thought that it was even possible for my wife and I to have a blue eyed child.  It’s pretty funny, actually.

Not only has Jack changed in so many big ways since November 16th, 2011.  But I have as well.  You can’t be a parent and not become a different person in the process.  Even in just six month’s time.  Especially in the first six month’s time.

Am I writing this morning about Jack or myself?  Equally both, at best.  At age 29, when we found out we were going to have a baby, I had reached a point in my life where I evidently stopped growing and maturing as a person.  And since he was born, I’ve made up for any lost time as far as personal development.

I’ve undergone so many changes in the last six months that the best and perfect comparison would be to Desmond on Lost, who traveled in and out of time, disoriented of where and “when” he was.  I do feel spaced out, in the most literal way that the phrase “spaced out” can be used.  I’m trying to remember what it means to “be myself,” when becoming a father obviously changes that version of “myself” who I completely understood and had figured out.

Of course, these “who am I?” sort of thoughts aren’t red flags for some kind of personal crisis.  Instead, this is just me pointing out that I (and I assume other first time parents, too) undergo so many changes in their life at once that they have to take time to deliberately and specifically figure out who this new person is that they’ve become.  Not a bad version of who they are; just the different version that is required of them in becoming a parent.

By no means does a person stop growing up just because they turn 30.  Instead, some of the greatest maturity is happening at that age, for me.  And at six months old, I think it’s safe to say that Jack is experiencing some of the same thoughts in his own little baby brain.  The question is whether or not he’s more spaced out than I am.

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Is Life in Black and White or in Color? Is It Real or Just a Dream? What was Before and What is Beyond the Vanilla Sky?

At point does “real” become imaginary?  Or does “real” never become imaginary, but instead, is “real” sometimes unseen and not yet understood?

What initially begins as blue skies which we can literally see above us does eventually become the dark, black, mysterious outer space where we assume God and the angels are.  And maybe even aliens and time traveling holes in the universe. While the past simply begins at one second ago, which we all can verify quite easily, if we continue going back in time, we eventually find ourselves in stitched-together memories of high school and even childhood.  Keep going, and we were not even born yet.  Travel further back in time, and we would see Abraham Lincoln, whom we all agree was a real person.  Go still further back to the life of Jesus, whom some proclaim is the Son of God, some proclaim was simply a great teacher, and some proclaim was never actually a real person. Go back to the days of Abraham, the earthly father of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  Finally, we get to Adam and Eve and before that, the beginning of the Earth and the Universe.  But at what point in reverse time do you stop believing in reality?  At what point does it become hard to believe?

What started out as simple look around us ended up becoming one strange trip. It’s easy to recognize what exists right before us in our own time and space.  But very quickly as we extend the frame of perception, we have to admit we can not literally prove anything.  Faith is unavoidable, for every single person alive today and every single person who has died in the history of the world.

While I am definitely a self-proclaimed black and white kind of guy, as I love things to be simply laid out before me in a practical way I can follow and understand them, I am just as equally an abstract, neon colors kind of guy as well. I am a cross-breed.  I am a hybrid.  And I believe that life is as well.

We can not separate the mostly relatable first episode of the TV show LOST from its spiritual, heavenly series finale.  Our existence is both real and a dream.  It is both tangible and invisible.  It is both reality and a fairy tale.  Until we reach the limits of outer space, and until we travel completely back and forwards in time, life is something we can not truly begin to figure out or understand in the smallest degree.

Life is both black and white and color.  Life is both real and a dream.

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Seeing Your Life Flash Before Your Eyes in a God-Nudged Leap of Faith (Like Being in a Near Death Experience)

I will begin with an excerpt from the final scene of the movie American Beauty, narrated by the protagonist “Lester Burnham”- played by Kevin Spacey:

“I’d always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn’t a second at all. It stretches on forever, like an ocean of time. For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout Camp, watching falling stars. And yellow leaves from the maple trees that lined our street. Or my grandmother’s hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper… It’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain. And I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry, you will someday.“

I would venture to say that every living person is familiar with the idea of your own life flashing before your eyes right before you die- whether you actually die or it’s just a near death experience.  Interestingly, it’s not career titles or material possessions that are included in these flashes. Seeing your life flash before your eyes is a great way to be reminded of what’s truly important to you: People and the important events of our lives that involve them. “Loved ones”, as we tend to call these important family members, friends, and mentors- though sometimes that term is used more often after they have passed on.

Knowing that the living people who I am closest to are the most important and influential thing in my life, they became the inspiration for my leap of faith.  My wife and I decided that bringing our son into this world meant we should move to my hometown to be surrounded by family.  Honestly, it wasn’t that difficult for me to abandon the financial security we had back in Nashville.  Because again, it’s wasn’t financial security that showed up when I allowed my life to flash before my eyes.  On many levels it may seem foolish that we left steady jobs in a very unsteady job market, but we believed that God would honor our trust in Him to provide for us, knowing we deliberately chose family over financial security.

Though I’m not in a near death experience right now, in this God-nudged leap of faith, time is standing still as I see a constant slideshow of what I have lived through as well as what I hope to see once I land.  I struggle daily not to play the “what if?” game, regarding my past.  But at this point, it’s not about the decisions that led me to this difficult place.  It’s what God can do with this situation and how He can be seen by others because of it.  Not to mention, I know that this event will either enhance my faith through discipline and patience, or it will cause me to foolishly put faith in men who may or may not provide a job for me.

Fortunately, it’s not people who provide jobs anyway.  It’s not them who help me provide for my family.  It is completely God.  That’s something I have begun reminding myself daily.  And in the process, I have been directed to one of God’s Hebrew names: Jehovah Jireh.  It means “The Lord will provide”.  I have been getting in the habit of praying to Jehovah Jireh, as His name specifically declares His providence.

I am not hopeless.  I will personally admit that as a man who is designed to care for his family, not having a job though I am fully capable and qualified, is quickly taking away my dignity.  But really, is dignity what I am after?  No.  Seeking after God and only trusting in him, not men or corporations or even myself, is a humiliating process.  The word “humiliating” has such a negative connotation to it.  But being humbled is important.  Pride is to be damned, literally.  It only gets in the way.

So damn my pride to hell.  Damn my dignity too.  So what if every time a new door closes a new one opens, only to be shut just like the others.  More than once now my wife and I have seen the perfect jobs dangled right in front of us in job interviews, being one of two final candidates for the position.  But ultimately, the blessing of a job goes to the other person- a person who statistically predicting, would not jump at the chance to glorify God in the way we will once they get a job.  Or a sudden hiring freeze appears.  Something has always caused to the door to shut, so far.

I don’t even know anymore whether these “almost got the job” situations are a result of spiritual warfare in some lesser modern day story of Job or whether it is God Himself allowing these interceptions to increase our faith in Him.  As I watch our $10,000 in savings that we moved here with dwindle to less than half that now, I wonder if taking this leap of faith with $75,000 would have made any difference.  Because then we would have $65,000 more confidence in ourselves.

It’s not money we need- it’s jobs.  And men can’t provide those- only God can. Whatever the lesson is to be learned here, we will learn it.  God will provide. It’s His name, after all.  Jehovah Jireh, I believe it!

Proverbs 16:18
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

Proverbs 29:23
A man’s pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.

Ecclesiastes 7:8
The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.

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Hindsight’s 50/50: You Choose to Either Focus on the Positive or the Negative Memories

No, I didn’t mean to say “20/20”.

It’s easy to look back at when life was a bit easier (AKA “the good ole days”) and compare it to now.  There’s a 50% chance that life seemed better a year ago, two years ago, or five years ago.  But, there’s also a good chance (let’s say 80%) if that’s the case, that you’re choosing to focus on the best parts of that time in your life, and for the most part, forgetting about the tough parts.  Hindsight’s 50/50 because you either romantically focus on the ideal parts of the past, making your present life the short straw compared to it, or, you don’t, and instead make an effort to choose the bad parts of that ideal year too.

In a sense, everything in life can be broken down to the statistical chance of 50/50.  Either you will get that one thing in life you’ve always wanted, or you won’t.  Either you win the lottery, or you won’t.   Either you will live to be 100, or you won’t.  One of the few events in life that can’t be assigned the 50/50 status is whether or not you will die at some point; No matter what the percent chance is how you leave this world: by cancer, by car accident, by heart attack, etc.

Last night I watched the final episode of Lost again.  One of the most memorable scenes for me was when the protagonist, Jack Shephard, technically in a flash-forward of the future after he had already died, meets his father in the afterlife.  “I died too,” Jack says to his father.  His father reassures him with a smile, “It’s okay, son… Everybody dies sometime, kiddo.  Some of them before you, some of them long after you.”

Whether you ever watched Lost or not, I’m not giving away anything by telling you what happened in the last scene. Because really, for any TV show or movie, ultimately everyone does die- it’s just that that’s never included in the episode.  Does Marley die at the end of Marley and Me? Whether he does or doesn’t die at the end, he still has to die sometime.  But it’s when a protagonist’s death is included in the script that we are forced to be reminded that beyond each “good time” and “bad time” in our lives, there ultimately is a bigger picture.

We have to choose to focus and dwell on the good parts of life now in this moment.  Otherwise, we end up psychologically living in the past when things appeared to be better than they are now, or we live in the future when things will hopefully be better, which is again focusing on a potentially imaginary life.  Because at this point, the glorious past and the perfect future are both impossible now.  The only thing possible is what is happening right this minute.

Hindsight really is 50/50.

Here is the final scene of Lost; the conversation between Jack Shephard and his father:

If you enjoyed this post, there is a 50% chance that you will also like these ones too:

The Good Ole Days: Past, Present, or Future?

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Sounds Like Someone’s Got a Case of the What If’s?