Happy Austinversary!

(I have to give credit for coining "Happy Austinversary" to my husband, who wished me this as he left for work this morning.)

Today is the anniversary of my first full day in Austin, Texas. On August 13 of last year, Daphne and I woke up, make sure everything was packed in the car, including the cats, retracted the RV slides, and caravanned from Sherman to Austin with the guy I'd found on uShip.

Several people told me at the time that I was "brave" for heading out on my own, but I certainly didn't feel very brave.

Truth is, back in May, when I first set my mind to leave Sherman, I was very certainly running away.

I overheard the stalker telling someone that I was moving away because of him. That was untrue (although it has been nice not to have to worry about his showing up on my doorstep when something hits him the wrong way). I was running away from situations I couldn't right and that were continuing to cause pain for myself and for people who cared about me. I was running from the pain of seeing relationships I'd had dissolve around me, and things I never dreamed I'd lose fading away. I was running, mostly, because I knew that if I stayed in that place, I would keep banging my head against the same walls and nothing would ever change. I'd believed, early on in the process, that time would fix things. It turned out that time was actually amplifying many of the problems, and the only resort seemed to be to go.

However, something happened between May and August. I had to stay in Sherman because I'd committed to a summer play. And during that "lame duck" time, I happened to go up to Tulsa to visit James. Obviously, we ended up dating, and over those two months, I began to hope again. I began to see the move not only as escaping an unbearable set of circumstances (don't get me wrong: several of those were direct results of poor choices that I made), but as running toward... a new day, a fresh start, a life that would be free of the baggage that surrounded me in the small town where it had all happened.

By the time Daphne and I pulled into the Royal Palms RV Park, I didn't feel like we'd finally gotten far enough away... I felt like we'd finally come home. That very weekend, we started attending the church where we have begun to make a family. (Also that very weekend, I fell in the laundry room, which probably exacerbated my spinal injury, but life happens no matter where you are.)

Over the past year, I have made way too many trips to Dallas, handled the stress of a long-distance relationship very poorly (actually, handled the stress of a close-distance relationship equally badly), visited the Texas coast with my favorite people in the world, gotten married, moved into the city center, gotten reacquainted with baking, visited another country and met some incredible people, and have had so many amazing "new life" experiences that I am overwhelmed by the blessings of it.

It has become very clear that Austin is my town. There are so many opportunities here to meet people, have amazing experiences, not to mention that my sister and her family are here. I am grateful for my new start, and I am looking forward to seeing what the next year brings...