Daily Archive

Even though I chose to change my life and knew to some degree what the changes would do to it, this adjustment period is rough. I know full well that there are people who deal much better with far worse situations every day and that knowledge humbles me.

Then there are those who get thrown off by a hangnail. I’m somewhere in between. Not gasping for lack of an accustomed oxygen source that is unavailable in my new environment, but not sailing along with ineffable aplomb either.

Before I ever had any notion of relocating, I came to this town to meet its then-newest resident soon after her birth. My overly-complicated plan involved several steps that could have been eliminated with just a little foresight.

Observing the 3 P’s to prevent the other 3 P’s was not my prime directive at the time, however, and thus the trip was more of a fly-by-night operation than most people would admit to having any part in. I can look back and see how I might have done it differently, but I can’t be at all sorry it went the way it did.

For example, I now fondly recall the terrifying night drive from Chicago to Milwaukee – during which I did not crash or jeopardize in any way the vehicle I paid too many dollars to rent – and its triumphant conclusion at my little brother’s doorstep. Or more accurately, the sidewalk outside the bar he lived above at the time.

We arrived in Madison much the way I had begun the trip – clear on what we were there to do, muddled as to how to achieve our destination.

My most vivid memory of the trip is driving around the city in that weak pinkish-gray very early morning light that doesn’t hurt your eyes *just* yet, looking for the donut shop one of us had heard about and after finding it (delicious), earnestly and lucklessly attempting to locate our older brother’s house by its proximity to a Baptist church.

There is more than one Baptist church in Madison, much to our disgruntlement. Also it is possible to approach the state Capitol from multiple directions in rapid succession without getting any semblance of bearings from the exercise.

Although there were many aspects of the journey that could have happened in perhaps a more thought-through, prudent, fiscally-conservative manner (the $500+ one-day/one-way car rental, for starters), it would not be half as memorable had such precautions been implemented.

I know in my heart that I would not have done it in any other way, partly because I can be quite stubborn but also because I only had so much to go on.

That was the first time I had ever rented a car, and it showed.

It was the first time my “use the force” method of direction-finding really let me down.

It was the first time my navigational shortcomings while traveling with another person didn’t result in stone-cold silence or lashings of anger from my co-traveler. My tall little brother doesn’t go in for the silent treatment, the blame game or pointless rage.

Last but not least, it was the first time I saw my older brother as a father, which put all the rest of the firsts into a different kind of focus.

You can try to predict the moments you’ll know things will never be quite the same again, when you’ll absorb the impact of change as it’s happening, but they will still sneak up on you.

Since I moved here two years ago, this city hasn’t appeared to me again in the same way it did that morning – not even when I first arrived with all of my earthly possessions in the back of my truck.

That first trip to Madison wasn’t a decision point for my move here – it happened almost two years before I made the move. I’m sure some information got stored away and factored in later, but that trip was no kind of fact-finding mission.

I’ve been back around to the places we traveled through, and although many of them are familiar to me now, none of them are familiar from that morning.

They just don’t feel the same way now as they did to me then, even though they are the same actual places.

At least part of that must have to do with a feeling of belonging which I didn’t have then and am still hesitant to say I feel now.

I don’t know how long I’ll be here. That uncertainty makes me think it won’t be forever. But the difference I feel driving those same side streets, past hospitals and lovely-porched houses and even the donut shop, feels a lot like a claim. Whether it’s on me or by me I just can’t tell.