What’s capturing my attention

A life and writing update 

I love to get lost in the steady rhythm of hiking. Stepping over mossy stumps, gauging the slickness of smooth stones, leaping over puddles, and shimmying down rock faces requires a certain level of concentration. My overthinking narrows to appropriate thinking as I respond and react to new sensory information. Without deliberation or hesitation, I orient and re-orient with each footfall and balance of my body. I am able to be fully present with my current step, then the next and the next.  

As a writer, I typically like to share my processing in real time, as I’m living it, raw and unfiltered and confessional. This feels the most authentic to me. 

The last year has felt a lot like hiking —exhilarating and adventurous, but requiring all of my focus and attention just to get from one step to the next. 

After I shared that I was healing from both a sinus infection and OCD in December, that first light was dawning, I got another cold which promptly became a sinus infection that lasted for three more months. Once I finally started feeling better (thanks to dietary changes!), the semester was ending and it was time to act on our decision to move our family from San Diego, CA to Coeur D’Alene, Idaho.

The move may seem sudden, unexpected, out of the blue. But I assure you, this decision had been slowly nagging, building, growing, grating, unfolding for years. We have good friends who moved to North Idaho a few years ago and we have fallen more in love with the area on each visit. The move will provide us flexibility for me to leave my teaching job so that I can pursue writing and mental health advocacy and spend more time sharing here! The move will offer us a chance to practice stepping into the unknown (which I’ve been training for with OCD recovery!). We are excited for lakes and pine trees, seasons, a walkable neighborhood, an epic backyard treehouse, reconnecting with friends and making new friends, more margin, and a chance to grow together as a family of four. 

It was bittersweet and overwhelming to leave a place and so many people we love in the hopes of a life we can’t yet fully imagine. Amidst uncertainty, we cling to the hope of goodness, the thrill of adventure, and the privilege of opening ourselves to surprise.

In May, I finished my last semester teaching ESL composition at San Diego State University and finally bought myself some SDSU swag. We prepared to list our home by re-painting the interior (because kids and scribbles and stickers), getting new carpet (the cats are more to blame than the kids here), and decluttering with black trash bag energy. I highly recommend Cas the Clutterbug’s 30 day declutter challenge. 

June brought the (bitter) sweetest month of goodbyes and time with our friends and family and the chaos of fitting everything we own into two pods to move 1,500 miles away.

In July, we said our final goodbyes to San Diego and drove for two days with two kids and two cats (remind me to write about the cats in the hotel experience) to our new home in downtown Coeur d’Alene, just a mile from the lake and coffee shops and the public library! I had a couple weeks to unpack and hike and explore with the kids before I flew off to Orlando to present on OCD and creativity at the International OCD conference. And of course I’ve been watching women’s gymnastics and the Olympics like it’s my job. 

Phew, and jumping from sickness to end of semester craziness to an out-of-state move to presenting at a conference is not enough for one season, I am now typing this from the car driving back down to San Diego to finally have the sinus surgery the doctors recommended from my CT scan back in December of last year (I will save my rant about an 8 month wait for needed surgery for another time). 

I go into surgery tomorrow and I don’t really expect to be back to writing or even feeling like myself for awhile still. Luckily, my kids don’t start school until after Labor Day in Idaho, but I imagine that transition will require my full attention as well. 

This is my long-winded way of saying I miss you. I miss writing here. I’m choosing to live this tender season before writing about it.  As I wrote above, one of the reasons for the move is to give me more margin to write (peek my new writing space below). I’m just not experiencing that margin yet. 

Like with hiking, I’m focused on each next step, each small recalibration, each new obstacle for the time being. 

I can’t wait to see you on the other side with an epic story (or two) to tell.

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I’d love to hear from you! What’s capturing your attention in this season?