Dallas

Something extraordinary just happened and I didn't see it coming. I have been fighting the urge to think this for about 3.5 months and then, just like that, the thought went through my head with a genuine belief. I like Dallas. I like living in Dallas. Whoa, I didn't see that one coming.

I moved back to Dallas from Washington DC around Thanksgiving for two main reasons: (1) I didn't like living so far away from my family and felt that I was missing out on my siblings growing up and (2) Nathan was looking for a job in Dallas. Those two reasons alone compelled me to leave my job in DC and move back. Moving to DC was a fulfillment of a dream that I had for 4 years. All I wanted was to move to DC, work for the military or intelligence services and have my life be ruled by a Blackberry, tight deadlines, late work nights, midnight calls to come back to work and a relentless life pace that can only be upheld by someone in their twenties. It was all I wanted, it was my dream.

I actually went back to DC this weekend to visit friends and tour the White House. It was pretty incredible to be that close to the building that has housed so many Presidents and their families, where the decision to start wars has been made, where Prime Ministers and President's have met and where the men and women that have defined the history of the country have walked.



What I expected to feel this weekend was an intense longing to go back to DC. I expected to walk away regretting the decision that I had made to move back to Dallas and away from a dream I had wanted to live for so many years. But, those feelings never came. Instead, I came back to Dallas and realized how much I love this city. I am starting a new and fantastic (albeit scary) life here in this city, specifically, in 58 days. Sometimes I let all the scariness of this new stage of life terrify me. Sometimes I lay in bed at night so afraid that I am giving up my freedom to do whatever I want whenever I want, my dream to bike across Europe with only a backpack holding my belongings, my hope of one day working at a church and loving in high school girls, and my (almost) secret desire to have a job where I get to carry a gun (weird, I know).

But then I come back to the fact that I would rather live my life with this man than do anything else. I know that there will be hard days. I know that some days I will have to make a conscious decision to love, and it won't be easy. I know the storms will continue to come and that life will get harder. But I would rather do this thing called life with him, whatever city we are in, whatever job I hold, than be anywhere else.

This doesn't mean I have failed and bailed at the dream I held through all of college. I went and I lived it for 6 great months. And honestly, I probably would regret never moving out there and at least trying it. But I have a new dream now. It's not a dream for my life and my career, it's a dream for our life. And I wouldn't trade that for the world.