By A. C. Seiple
“What are you doing with all of your stuff?” She looked at me perplexed, like she was trying to work out an unsolvable math problem.
This was not the first time I had been asked this question. Over and over again, the moment people heard we were moving overseas for me to pursue a degree, they were curious about the logistics. Without missing a beat, they would start asking questions, like:
“Will you ship your furniture?”
”How many suitcases are you taking?”
“Will you rent or buy there?”
And over and over again, I offered my simple all-in-one answer: ”It’s expensive to ship furniture and our rental is furnished, so we’re only bringing a couple of suitcases.” Cue shocked faces and additional questions about how we could possibly fit everything we would need into a few pieces of luggage.
And while I can assure you that it was a significant feat to only bring those two suitcases each, I’m becoming increasingly aware of the invisible baggage that we took with us and had to leave behind: the nonmaterial “things” weighing heavy inside.
Alongside the hundreds of books we left behind that my husband and I had accumulated during our four master’s degrees, we stored unwritten histories — memories of simpler days, days that stitched together our friendship, love story, and the years when we were in the academy together. Each of these “histories” holds memories that we didn’t have time to fully reminisce over, placing their pages and that chapter of our life in boxes, knowing the story ahead would not be the same.
Stacked in a plastic storage container sit cards and pictures from friends and family, along with the unstackable, intangible grief of having to say goodbye, knowing that I would be flying thousands of miles away, no longer close enough to live life together. Some grief stays stored there, grief too painful to feel, while some inevitably came with me, taking up residence in our new home.
With the too-heavy-to-pack clothing that now rests in mother’s closet, there hangs the life we could be living had we stayed where we were, like a weighty “what if” that has stayed behind, dangling as it waits to never be lived, now dormant.
In our cars that we sold to strangers, wheels hold the maps of the paths we once took, the patterns of life that had once been our normal. And now as our feet get used to walking cobblestone streets in a seaside town, our bodies' internal navigation systems are daily uploading new terrain and new rhythms.
Wrapped up with my Christmas and fall decorations stored in a friend’s garage sits the predictable cadence of “next year” that we once blissfully assumed we’d share together. And now, rather than plans to relive our favorite traditions, we find new ones, adapting to text messages sent in different time zones.
My sister-in-law now houses our big comfy couch, complete with the memories of Friday night movies and games with her brother. And as I sit on my new couch in this new place, I keep with me the memory of her tears that joined with mine, and those final hugs that we knew would need to sustain us for a long while.
And in our emptied house where tenants now live, a sense of home still lives there. Like plants that propagated, our root system has stayed in the earth of that place as we grow new roots here, finding new soil to nourish us.
Saying yes to the opportunity to move across the world and pursue this degree required that both my husband and I leave behind so much more than our stuff. And as we settle into this new place, I’m realizing each day that we brought a lot more with us than what I originally thought we packed. The fifty-pound weight limit for our suitcases may have kept me from bringing a favorite pink sweater and adorable jean jumper, but it didn’t keep me from carrying the grief of countless goodbyes that couldn’t be contained in any storage space.
The weight limit also didn’t stop me from bringing the parts of me that were terrified to reach for this dream, scared that like other life plans, these might also fall through. And these parts of me are now here in this new country, looking around at a storyline more beautiful than I could have written myself, wondering, Is this really happening? Is God going to take this away too?
These vulnerable depths of my soul have encountered the most painful of heartaches in the midst of previous moves, two specific ones that took unthinkable turns, turns that left me with trauma rather than in the new home I was supposed to be moving to.
And while it’s tempting to try and correct the theology of these stirrings deep within, I don’t think that’s what they need most.
In this new place, these tender spaces inside need time and space to feel and move through what has been stirred up by this move — not just the grief of this specific transition, but all the griefs of life before that this is reminiscent of as well.
This is one of those moments where as a therapist, I know in my thinking brain that of course this move would bring up emotions and memories of the past that somehow feel similar at a gut-level. It’s how our brains and bodies store and move through grief and trauma. But there are spaces far beneath my thinking brain that are not curious about that logic, or proper theology, depths of me that simply need time to settle in and see if this whole thing is real — or if it’ll end up like the other plot twists of the past.
As much as some parts of me have wanted to jump right in and create an instant life here, there’s been a gentle whisper inside inviting me to honor the breathing room that the vulnerability in me needs before diving into this new life — like an old wound that’s resurfaced, needing a bandage that both protects it and also leaves some space for air. And I want to believe, I have to believe, that God is gently holding me there, not looking to force me to feel fully settled before I’m ready, with me for whatever is on the road ahead.
Photo credit: A. C. Seiple
