No More Wallowa County Summer

Hey Blog, It's been a minute.

For my recent graduates. This years, last years, even the kids in my grade. Do you guys remember the moment we realized that this was it? We had spent the last summer as kiddos in our parents house, packed our cars, and headed out on a brand new adventure. That moment didn't hit me until I walked out of my job that summer, the day before I moved. I realized I was walking away from a job I had loved, a boss I had loved, but more than that, I was leaving everything I had ever known to go on an adventure that would be full of things I couldn't except, and grow me in ways I never knew I could.

Well, that's sorta how I feel right now.

This engagement has been so weird. We spent seven months without even really being able to think of picking a date (meanwhile, I was falling in love with July), and then about two weeks ago we figure out a month (maybe), but we still aren't sure because there are travel bans and all sorts of crazy things... I'm so ready to just be married. To not have to wait months and months at a time to see my guy for 8 days and then wait even more months, without knowing which month I'd be able to see him again. This most recent trip was what ended a 7 month spell of not seeing him!!! That's 100% of the time we have been engaged.

But anyways. I said that I think we may have a month. So all of a sudden, I'm looking around me and realizing that this is it. I'll potentially be packing my bags and moving across the country in 10 months, but this time, its so much bigger than just going to college.

See, as a college student, you can come home on the weekends. Live with your parents over the summer, if you go to a college in the same town as your parents, you might even still live with them. I'm going to be MARRIED. With my own house and building my own family. Clear across the country. No more Wallowa County summers.

No more Wallowa County summers. I suddenly find my heart missing the lake. I probably go to the lake, a max of 5 times a summer, and I live 15 minutes from the lake. I've never missed it before. I know that I am saying goodbye to my brother in three weeks. This is the last time we have together like this. What if my church never opens back up, and I've already had my last bible study? I learned and gained so much from the women. I learned about marriage and relationships and so many wonderful and amazing things that I wish I could hear more of right now. I won't come home from work and get to see my mom's new projects. No more R&R fries and shakes with jake.

I'm not sad. I'm just. Reeling I guess. This whole engagement, I haven't really felt it. We didn't have a date. Pretty much suspended in an awkward space between being boyfriend and girlfriend and husband and wife. Waiting to even get started with the inbetween part, learning that sometimes God has us in seasons that seem to be just stagnance, but realizing that He uses that time to work on us and grow our relationship before we go forward and take the next huge step. Then, all of a sudden, this completely elusive date becomes almost tangible and all the stuff you've been talking about and planning for, its coming into view and the realization that one of the biggest changes of your life is just around the corner.

I'm changing my last pipe, driving the tractor for the last time... amd yeah. I will come home. I will probably spend a week or two here, every once in a while, but it will be different. I won't be my mom's kid anymore. I'll be a mom. I'll be a wife. I'll have a homebase, 3000 miles away. Living a completely different life than I could imagine, or my mom could imagine.

I'll move over and over for the next chapter of my life, my only constant will be the man I'm married to and our kids. New houses, new schools, new jobs. Over and over. Getting to be with my husband for a year and then saying goodbye for seven months. Plans changing last minute.

This is my last Wallowa County Summer. My last summer as a kid. I want to spend it at the lake. I want to spend it with my friends, riding my bike, visiting my grandparents, looking at the stars, and enjoying how simple my life is right now. Enjoying the job I have, the people around me. Having giant open space to sing and not be heard, to run and not be seen.Wedding planning will start soon, and I can only imagine what that will look like, so I hope to soak in the quiet, normal, same thing I do every day.

Don't get me wrong. I can't wait to live near the coast, have it be summer all year around, get to live in the magic of being married to my best friend on the planet, and sending my mom pictures of all the lizards I see on the sidewalks, but right now, its time for me to love where I'm at.

Until I get inspired again,
Georgia