the move- two years later
Two years ago, almost to the day, we made our move from Tennessee to Missouri.
This is the last picture I have of the six of us taken in Knoxville. Katie was just over a year old. Drew was almost four. Gracie was about to enter fourth grade and Luke second. What an intense time in our lives that summer was! Even now, two years later, I remember it with such clarity.
I remember the excitement in Ben's voice back in May of that year- 2012- when he first told me that he thought a move back to St. Louis was a real possibility- and the relief I felt that the promotion was not going to take us somewhere else. He had been offered other positions in locations we were not nearly as excited about, but he declined them in the hopes of getting closer to family once again. Returning to St. Louis had been the dream since the first time we left.
I remember the uncertainty we felt throughout that summer while waiting to hear a definite answer. His bosses acted as if the move was a given, but he was not formally offered a position. We could not begin the process of relocating our family (putting our house on the market, searching for a new home, etc.) until we got the formal offer and Trane moved s-l-o-w-l-y on that decision that summer.
I remember not wanting to believe that it really might happen because I did not want to get my hopes up. I remember many, many conversations that started with "IF we move to St. Louis….."
I remember worrying about the kids. Another move felt mean. I remember them requesting that if we had to move, could we please at least move over the summer so that they could start the school year with everyone else? I remember stressing about the first day of school deadline more than any other part of the move. I felt such guilt for moving them again that the least I could do was try to honor the request, but it felt out of my hands as we waited on the green light. .
I remember excitement to get back to the Midwest mixed with sadness to leave a part of the county we really liked. It was such a summer of "in between" and it was hard. We could not make plans for the future because we did not know what our future looked like. We weren't telling people because we didn't know for sure that we had anything to tell.
I remember the hours I spent sitting on our balcony deck on my laptop that hot summer, sipping iced tea and searching for real estate in St. Louis while baby Katie played with her new water table next to me. This truly could not be any more vivid in my mind.
I remember the day we FINALLY got the formal offer and could stop worrying about the timeline of the move and just start the process. We had everything set up with our realtors a few days earlier so that we could just "flip the switch" and be on the market as soon as we possibly could.
I remember the stress of showing the house. I had all four kids with me and Ben was already gone. The stakes felt so very high to sell the house quickly because I just wanted to get all six of us settled in our new life as quickly as possible. I did not want to be one of the relocated families I heard about so often where one parent moved ahead to start the new job while the other stayed behind with the kids to sell the house and TEN MONTHS LATER they were still living in limbo in separate states.
I remember the relief and excitement we felt to sell our Knoxville house within days of being on the market. Talk about a huge worry being lifted off of our shoulders!
I remember the excitement of the house hunt here in St. Louis. I remember the first time I set foot in this home. I remember the week of negotiations and counteroffers to counteroffers. I remember the moment the realtor told us it would be ours.
I remember the stress of the movers being in our home in Knoxville to pack everything up for us. The kids and I camped out in the master bedroom just to stay out of their way. Everything that was not going into temporary storage fit into the master bedroom closet.
I remember feeling very alone at times as Ben was already in Missouri as the kids and I stayed behind in Tennessee. There were so many phone calls between us those weeks as we tried to navigate through all of the things that had to be done to close up a life in Knoxville and begin one in Webster Groves. Bank paperwork, home inspection stuff, moving documents, new school documents… there was always something. I also remember being blown away by the kindness of our friends there. So many wonderful people wanted to do whatever they could to make our last couple of weeks in Knoxville as fun as possible.
I remember the sadness of saying goodbye to Knoxville and all of the wonderful people we knew there. I remember dinners with friends and a whole lot of "lasts"- last time we would go to the mountains, last time we would go to our church, last time we would take a walk to Turkey Creek, last Saturday outing to McKays, last playdates with friends, etc. etc. It all felt like a band aid being pulled off in slow motion. There were so many tears from us that last week that I was ready to just yank off the band aid and be done with it.
I remember being in limbo for a bit once we had left Knoxville but were not ready yet to close on the new house in St. Louis. 95% of our earthly possessions were in storage somewhere. The kids and I were living with my parents and Ben was in St. Louis in complete appreciation to his aunt and uncle for providing him with a place to stay while he started his new job.
I remember we had a canoe trip with friends right in the middle of that limbo period. I remember that I was just so stressed out and ready to move to our home that I could not fully relax. If I could have hit the fast forward button to our closing day, I would have in a second, even if it meant skipping the canoe trip. I remember feeling sick of life in limbo and just wanting life to feel normal again.
I remember our closing day being horribly stressful. I left the kids in Decatur and drove to St. Louis to meet Ben at the closing. There were complications surrounding the closing and we did not end up getting everything finalized until very late in the day. We came back to the house and began painting the ugly yellow kitchen that very night. We slept on air beds on the floor of our new living room. I remember expecting to feel excitement and happiness, but really just feeling overwhelmed.
I remember moving- in day and all of the chaos that it brought. There were moving men and boxes everywhere and all I could do was try frantically to keep up with all of the times I heard "Mam?….." from the moving men. Each time they asked me where something should go, I gave the best answer I could. I remember my goal for the day was to get the kitchen in a semi-usable state.
I remember when the kids arrived from Decatur later in the day and watching their excitement to check out their new home. Adorable. Their smiles overshadowed my stress about settling in. I remember squeals of laughter and Gracie and Luke just running through the house.
I remember that first week of life here. The kids started at their new school. Neighbors stopped by to introduce themselves. St. Louis friends and family stopped by or called to check on us. Ben worked long hours still trying to adjust to his new position. I worked long hours trying to clean and unpack and paint and decorate and make the home feel "ours."
And now it is two years later, While I would not say we are completely settled in, we are pretty darn close. The move back to St. Louis was not exactly what we pictured in ways that could be another post entirely, but it has been good. Really good. I am still a little bit surprised that things worked out as they did to get us right back to where we wanted to be.
I am on the Welcome Committee at our school and I have been spending some time this week with a family who has just moved to Webster from Minnesota. The day I met her at the park, there were moving vans in route to her home. I just wanted to give her a hug and tell her I completely sympathized with any stress she was going through, and also understood the excitement I knew at least part of her was feeling. There is something completely unique about the situation, and you don't know what it feels like until you have gone through it.
Forgive all of my rambling this evening. The combination of meeting some families just moving to our area and the realization that we are at the two-year mark since our move here has me full of thoughts and memories on the subject.
This is the last picture I have of the six of us taken in Knoxville. Katie was just over a year old. Drew was almost four. Gracie was about to enter fourth grade and Luke second. What an intense time in our lives that summer was! Even now, two years later, I remember it with such clarity.
I remember the excitement in Ben's voice back in May of that year- 2012- when he first told me that he thought a move back to St. Louis was a real possibility- and the relief I felt that the promotion was not going to take us somewhere else. He had been offered other positions in locations we were not nearly as excited about, but he declined them in the hopes of getting closer to family once again. Returning to St. Louis had been the dream since the first time we left.
I remember the uncertainty we felt throughout that summer while waiting to hear a definite answer. His bosses acted as if the move was a given, but he was not formally offered a position. We could not begin the process of relocating our family (putting our house on the market, searching for a new home, etc.) until we got the formal offer and Trane moved s-l-o-w-l-y on that decision that summer.
I remember not wanting to believe that it really might happen because I did not want to get my hopes up. I remember many, many conversations that started with "IF we move to St. Louis….."
I remember worrying about the kids. Another move felt mean. I remember them requesting that if we had to move, could we please at least move over the summer so that they could start the school year with everyone else? I remember stressing about the first day of school deadline more than any other part of the move. I felt such guilt for moving them again that the least I could do was try to honor the request, but it felt out of my hands as we waited on the green light. .
I remember excitement to get back to the Midwest mixed with sadness to leave a part of the county we really liked. It was such a summer of "in between" and it was hard. We could not make plans for the future because we did not know what our future looked like. We weren't telling people because we didn't know for sure that we had anything to tell.
I remember the hours I spent sitting on our balcony deck on my laptop that hot summer, sipping iced tea and searching for real estate in St. Louis while baby Katie played with her new water table next to me. This truly could not be any more vivid in my mind.
I remember the day we FINALLY got the formal offer and could stop worrying about the timeline of the move and just start the process. We had everything set up with our realtors a few days earlier so that we could just "flip the switch" and be on the market as soon as we possibly could.
I remember the stress of showing the house. I had all four kids with me and Ben was already gone. The stakes felt so very high to sell the house quickly because I just wanted to get all six of us settled in our new life as quickly as possible. I did not want to be one of the relocated families I heard about so often where one parent moved ahead to start the new job while the other stayed behind with the kids to sell the house and TEN MONTHS LATER they were still living in limbo in separate states.
I remember the relief and excitement we felt to sell our Knoxville house within days of being on the market. Talk about a huge worry being lifted off of our shoulders!
I remember feeling very alone at times as Ben was already in Missouri as the kids and I stayed behind in Tennessee. There were so many phone calls between us those weeks as we tried to navigate through all of the things that had to be done to close up a life in Knoxville and begin one in Webster Groves. Bank paperwork, home inspection stuff, moving documents, new school documents… there was always something. I also remember being blown away by the kindness of our friends there. So many wonderful people wanted to do whatever they could to make our last couple of weeks in Knoxville as fun as possible.
I remember the sadness of saying goodbye to Knoxville and all of the wonderful people we knew there. I remember dinners with friends and a whole lot of "lasts"- last time we would go to the mountains, last time we would go to our church, last time we would take a walk to Turkey Creek, last Saturday outing to McKays, last playdates with friends, etc. etc. It all felt like a band aid being pulled off in slow motion. There were so many tears from us that last week that I was ready to just yank off the band aid and be done with it.
I remember being in limbo for a bit once we had left Knoxville but were not ready yet to close on the new house in St. Louis. 95% of our earthly possessions were in storage somewhere. The kids and I were living with my parents and Ben was in St. Louis in complete appreciation to his aunt and uncle for providing him with a place to stay while he started his new job.
I remember we had a canoe trip with friends right in the middle of that limbo period. I remember that I was just so stressed out and ready to move to our home that I could not fully relax. If I could have hit the fast forward button to our closing day, I would have in a second, even if it meant skipping the canoe trip. I remember feeling sick of life in limbo and just wanting life to feel normal again.
I remember our closing day being horribly stressful. I left the kids in Decatur and drove to St. Louis to meet Ben at the closing. There were complications surrounding the closing and we did not end up getting everything finalized until very late in the day. We came back to the house and began painting the ugly yellow kitchen that very night. We slept on air beds on the floor of our new living room. I remember expecting to feel excitement and happiness, but really just feeling overwhelmed.
I remember moving- in day and all of the chaos that it brought. There were moving men and boxes everywhere and all I could do was try frantically to keep up with all of the times I heard "Mam?….." from the moving men. Each time they asked me where something should go, I gave the best answer I could. I remember my goal for the day was to get the kitchen in a semi-usable state.
I remember when the kids arrived from Decatur later in the day and watching their excitement to check out their new home. Adorable. Their smiles overshadowed my stress about settling in. I remember squeals of laughter and Gracie and Luke just running through the house.
I remember that first week of life here. The kids started at their new school. Neighbors stopped by to introduce themselves. St. Louis friends and family stopped by or called to check on us. Ben worked long hours still trying to adjust to his new position. I worked long hours trying to clean and unpack and paint and decorate and make the home feel "ours."
And now it is two years later, While I would not say we are completely settled in, we are pretty darn close. The move back to St. Louis was not exactly what we pictured in ways that could be another post entirely, but it has been good. Really good. I am still a little bit surprised that things worked out as they did to get us right back to where we wanted to be.
I am on the Welcome Committee at our school and I have been spending some time this week with a family who has just moved to Webster from Minnesota. The day I met her at the park, there were moving vans in route to her home. I just wanted to give her a hug and tell her I completely sympathized with any stress she was going through, and also understood the excitement I knew at least part of her was feeling. There is something completely unique about the situation, and you don't know what it feels like until you have gone through it.
Forgive all of my rambling this evening. The combination of meeting some families just moving to our area and the realization that we are at the two-year mark since our move here has me full of thoughts and memories on the subject.
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