Pulling Up Roots

We took the kids to the cemetery for Memorial Day. We talked about the sacrifices made to protect the liberties of our country. The kids thought it noteworthy that so many deceased at the cemetery were veterans– especially of WWII, since that’s an area of interest. We said a prayer for those buried there.

Among the stones we took time to visit the final resting places of my deceased grandparents and great-grandparents. Elle visited the grandpa she’s named after. I showed the kids where to find their great-great grandma for whom I’m named.

I was overwhelmed with the sense of how deep my roots are in this area.

It’s unusual that my kids have been baptized at the same church at which I was baptized. To have been married in the same church in which my parents were married. To have the same zip code as all my siblings.

I realize how much of my identity is wrapped up in This Place, where I have a sense of who I am and where I fit.

David’s family uses houses as an investment. Growing up, he moved many times (maybe…seven?) as his parents built and finished houses in order to sell for a profit. The house would always go to the highest bidder.

My family prefers to sell houses to family members if there’s a need to move. The house my parents built 35 years ago? It became the home of my grandma, now my uncle. The family farm my great-grandparents built? Was taken over by my grandparents, my parents, and now my sister and her family.

When we built our home in 2007, I expected to live there forever. Maybe it was naive, but that’s what I hoped and planned. When we moved in 2017 to a handicap accessible house to accommodate Cee’s needs, it was really difficult, but we moved because we had to.

And now? Now we face moving to an area where people don’t know us. Our history is a blank slate. Nobody will look at me and see my grandpa the mailman who, seeing that someone received lots of travel brochures, made up and delivered to them his own travel brochure for a dodgy local spot. Nobody will look at me and see my dad who is always helpity helping people with household projects.

I suppose I’ve been riding on the coattails of my relatives and this collective understanding of who we are as a family.

We haven’t gotten the guff that friends have gotten about homeschooling. My guess is that People Who Might Give Guff know that I have a degree in elementary education and part of the reason we homeschool is Cee’s complicated medical situation. Hard to argue with that.

Also, I assume that we get less tsk-tsk-tsking about our dandelion riddled yard or our infrequency of mowing because people understand that with Cee’s intense medications, we want to minimize environmental chemicals as much as possible. Plus that David has to work a lot of hours, so mowing gets backburnered when we’re juggling trips to Mayo, infusions every four weeks, and regular appointments.

What about when people don’t know us? Moving to a different town two and a half years ago, we lost some of that. People here have been gracious about our kids being dumb though. What about when we move further out?

There is a fine line between quirky and plain-old weird. I *think* I’ve been able to mostly stay on the quirky side? I don’t expect that everyone here knows everything about me, but they might remember something. That I loved playing Lucy in You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown and working at the local library, chatting with the little old ladies who would come in on Saturdays. That I was a drum major in high school marching band. That I graduated from college a semester early.

I’m worried because new people will only see me now– an overweight, unemployed, semi-overwhelmed mother of six who clearly has no sense of style and can’t name a single song by Arianna Grande. Not a single song.

Does it matter? No. Not really. And the three local people who read my blog will probably be like, “Nope, definitely not on the quirky side, girl. You just plain weird.” But it’s okay because I have my history to fall back on. People will still be polite because they are friends with my parents, or they know one of my siblings, or something.

We have less than a month before we have to be out of our house, and we don’t know where we’ll be after that. We’ve done virtual tours and in-person tours, but there’s always some big deal-breaker. This house only has one bathroom. That one “gets water.” This one literally has railroad tracks in the front yard.

Laundry in the basement? Fine. No master bedroom? Okay. No garage? We’ll deal. But we’re struggling with basic suitability. I don’t care if the cupboards are a dated orange-y oak, so long as they work. We’re okay with linoleum. But the railroad tracks? How can the market be so different only two hours away?

The trip to the cemetery clarified why moving hurts for reasons beyond just having to find a new church or circle of friends. I’m losing where I live AND who I am without any indicator that things will work out eventually. It’s a new level of having to trust.

Pulling up these roots is complicated.