I remember sitting in the audience at my son’s middle school musical the year we moved; he was in 6th grade at the time. As I watched him perform, I thought to myself, two years seems like such a long time, it will be forever before he is in 8th grade. Boy was I wrong! Those two years flew by at the speed of light, and here we are ten years later barely as if any time has passed. And yet, it seems as if it were a lifetime ago we were watching all of our belongings being packed, loaded on a semi and heading for... a life we never really expected.

As I sat down to write this, a realization occurred to me at how the number 10, at least in years, has been a recurring theme up to this point. Dates overlap, but the overall theme is the same.

10 years passed from:

Dating to being married with two children

Living in our first house (with a mortgage)

Living in our second house (with a mortgage) in our current city

Leaving my last job on their terms to starting my own business on mine

Eleven years ago, I was teaching fitness classes while also working 30 hours a week in business. I loved the job itself and the flexibility to work while my kids were in school, and I absolutely adored teaching fitness. In a single day, however, everything changed. My husband was offered a new job, a job he was not even looking for, while I was leaving mine. But, the catch was we had to move.

My husband and I grew up in SW Michigan. After my husband graduated from College, he interviewed for a job that would have moved us out of state. We were in the midst of planning our wedding and we were excited at the thought of starting out as newlyweds making a whole new life for us on our own. As it turned out, he was not offered that position, but we both tucked away the idea of relocating if the opportunity was ever presented.

The idea of starting fresh in a new city was both frightening and exhilarating. We now had the chance to make memories as a family that we had dreamed about as newlyweds. The decision to actually make the move, however, was more difficult than we thought. We were leaving all of our family, our friends and community. Everyone we knew and loved were staying behind while we ventured off to a city across the state where we knew not a single person. One significant night, as we were putting our children to bed, our son started crying asking us why we had to move. As we talked, the four of us cried together longing to keep what we had while starting something new.

From the time my husband accepted the new job until we moved was just over a year. Even though my husband commuting every week was rough, it was a blessing as it gave all of us the time we needed to prepare mentally for the change. We involved our children in the entire process as it helped them feel as if they were a part of the decision making. It also gave us time with those we loved before having to say goodbye. We knew we would be back to visit, but we also knew we needed to embrace our community and our fresh start.

These last ten years have been absolutely incredible! We have formed amazing new friendships, been immersed in new cultures, worked with some awesome people and have each grown immensely both personally and spiritually. We have had phenomenal people placed in our paths and have had incredible experiences that we unlikely would have had if we had not moved. We have had a lot of challenges along the way, some more difficult than others but that is expected. Looking forward, I do not know what the next ten years may look like, but looking back, each of us can honestly say we would do it all over again. All because we took a chance.