...It's Just Waiting For You to Find It

Over lunch, at Doc Chey's, this noodle restaurant in a part of Atlanta called the Highlands, my eyes glazed over on the scenery behind the window pane. A road, lined with the naked trees of winter, earthy stoned houses -- a perfect road, dewed with fog, dipping and rising, off into the distance. It reminded me of a town in Maine I had once been to with my girlfriends -- one of those trips we took back in the day to shake off the snow and celebrate the coming of Spring.

My sister-in-law, who still has yet to have a girly heart-to-heart with me about the weird state of my life right now, asks me earnestly, "If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?"

I didn't even have to think about it. Not-a-single-second-passed. Anywhere he is.... Because that's where I decided a long time ago home would be. I knew that we would never have a true hometown, that we would move every two years, that he would be away for more times than not. I knew that he would miss birthdays and anniversaries -- potentially most of my pregnancies, maybe even our children's births, or their first steps and first words. As much as those things would hurt, it wouldn't surmount to the hurt I would feel to not share life with him.

The question stumped me. I didn't have an answer. I had already resigned to live everywhere that I could live anywhere. This all caused me to really start thinking of this whole thing as over. Made me ask myself where I am going to go from here. Could I live in Florida still, if this didn't work out? Florida had nothing left for me right before I met him. Could I live in Atlanta?

For the first two week I was here, I didn't really look at anyone. I didn't even look at myself. But now, instead of sitting in the house with the five dogs, I went to the coffee shop across the street with my new laptop. I've always had this dream that I would just sit in a coffee shop and write all day. As hip as this is, it still doesn't feel whole. But I make myself sit here and write. I make myself converse with people. I study the types of people that walk in and out of here like an ink blot -- do their shapes and colors match mine? I rotate my body, a puzzle piece thrown from the board, seeking a fit.

I lean my head back, look to the ceiling for answers, or for comfort. On the shelf at this coffee shop is a sign that reads, "There's something wonderful for you here... it's just waiting for you to find it."