We Go East

This is a post about the change in our lives. Where we’ve been, are, and going. Phoenix, Westminster, Savannah.

“Infinite Things” is the title of the collection of new songs I’m releasing in a few weeks. I look forward to sharing them.

*at the bottom of this post you can listen to one of the songs

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Infinite Things

The phrase “infinite things” has been in my head since I heard pastor Gayle say it in her sermon on the one of the ten commandments – I don’t remember which one. We are in a time of saying goodbye to so much of our lives. We’ve decided to leave Phoenix after being here for almost five years and move back east. A few months ago, I sat across from a friend at lunch and he said kindly so…why are you leaving – it seems like things are good for you here? I told him that we want to be closer to our families, but yeah, I said, it feels weird leaving behind a life we really love, a life where we got to touch so many beautiful things and enjoy them with amazing people.

Our life here in Phoenix was full of firsts for us: first time in a corporate job, first team leaving a corporate job burnt-out, first time renting an apartment in the city, first time making friends all on our own, buying a house, having a kid, getting a dog, grad school, planting a yard, finding a church, and now the first time saying goodbye to all of that. All these things are ordinary. All of these also make up our life – they are part of us. They are regular and also transcendent in some way. Temporary, and also infinite. I remember sleeping the first night in our new house, just bare walls and a mattress on the floor. We filled it up and lived in it, and now it’s devolved again back to its emptiness – our things sold to neighbors and the rest hauled back to Goodwill from whence most of it came.

I sort of have hoarding tendencies. I constantly jab at Aleisha for getting rid of things and throwing out items I feel slightly attached to. She has evicting tendencies. Preparing to move has been a large exercise in choosing to let go. For me, just about everything has a little magic attached to it – some memory or meaning. Selling most of what we own for pittance at a yard sale, and to have neighbors haggle off another couple bucks, has not been easy for me. Who am I with all of this stripped away? But I think of it as an act of faith. I like all the things that filled up our life here – and we will find another life and more good things to fill it up with. At least I hope so.

Walking Away

One of my favorite places in the whole world is my office at the mental health clinic. Those few square feet with walls I painted green and a couch I found on Facebook are where I really started to believe that I could be a good therapist. Getting to work with the kids and families and adults who came each or every other week has been one of the greatest privileges of my life. I was tempted to take everything with me. The coffee table, the artwork, my pink chair, the lamps, my new dry erase markers! But in a great moment of trying to lean into acceptance and trusting that there will be enough again, I just walked out and left it all the way it was. I will put the pictures here so I can look back and remember. It was enough, I hope, to touch it – I don’t need to clinch my fist around it. I did cry when I turned the lamps out for the last time.

There’s a mirror in the hallway of an old church building where we’ve been going for years. It’s a youth center called Aim Right Ministries. I first went to Aim Right with my youth group around 2016. Aleisha was already a full time staff member at that time. While we were dating, we came out for the summer programs. Then we were married, and we came out for the summer again. Then after I graduated from college, we moved out to Phoenix, and Aleisha took a full time director position at Aim Right. While we waited for our lease to start we lived in an upstairs room at the church. We had our baby shower in the sanctuary. And we had our farewell party there the week we left.

I’ve walked by that mirror for the last nine years and saw my reflection. As a youth group kid on a mission trip, as a college student unsure of his place, as a summer intern, as a newly married young husband starting his first job out of college, and now as a dad and a therapist and whatever else I am while we’re leaving Phoenix. I was the last one to walk out of the building on the night of our farewell. I stopped for a second to see my reflection in that mirror one last time. I think I can say I’m really proud of us – I’m even really proud of me. We’ve come a long way in nine years. It’s the same kid looking back in my reflection, but it’s also kind of not.

A Month of Sundays

We decided to try to sell our home in the fall so that we could have two months back in our hometown to enjoy the holidays and rest from work before we move to Savannah. We had about twenty-two showings and exactly one offer, but the house sold right when we needed it to. Aleisha and Ava flew across the country, Phoenix to Westminster. Dad and I drove together, stopping in Oklahoma for the night. So now we are living with my parents and enjoying time together as a family – no job, no real schedule, not much of anything really. It is a gift.

Ava is loving the chance to spend time with her grandparents on both sides. Aleisha and I have started a membership at the YMCA, and she’s taken up beading. I’m applying to jobs in Savannah and finishing up work on recording this new collection of songs in my parents’ basement. If our lives are like a day, this time feels like a deep breath and a quick break after an intense hour of work. I am so thankful for it.

On the second track of this new collection of songs, I tried to look back at our time in Phoenix and what made it so special. The song is called “Infinite Things” and you can listen here if you like: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sTg6n_r2_uK9D4J_GTtgCk1nQUV2Ud3m/view?usp=sharing

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