Burketown

Obviously, I’ve been neglecting this website for a while.  First, because we were in the midst of moving and transitioning into a new life.  And then, because I needed to gain some perspective on our new life before I could begin to tell you, honestly, about it.  And yes, it’s taken over two years.

In short, this has been a total refocusing of our lives.  To state it clearly now seems natural, now that I know what we’re dealing with.  But then, when we began this process, it didn’t occur to me that this move would be the catalyst to cause us to reevaluate the whole.

There was a significant period of acclimating for us both.  I’m not certain that anything could have prepared us for the serious time suck that is architecture.  As a friend once put it, “architecture is hungry and it wants to eat everything”.  This is very very true.  We weren’t prepared for our neighbors to be good ol’ boys and have girlfriends that use LOL and BTW in actual conversations.  I wasn’t prepared for my hair to turn against me so completely in the humidity and I definitely was not prepared for the cockroaches.  I was prepared to miss my home, but was not prepared for the very real reality that, for the first time in my life, I may have said goodbye to Alaska forever.  I thought it would be relatively easy to find a job that matters to me.  It wasn’t.

 AND YET,

Despite being not-at-all prepared and fears being realized and my complaining about how horrible it all is, this has also been the best time of our lives and exactly the change that we needed, as I said, to pause and refocus.

 I know now that the time that Jacob spends away from me is completely necessary if he’s going to be a “starchitect”.  And one day, when he design/builds our family a beautiful home it will be then that I’ll demand that he never leave my side.  Like, ever again.  Not surprisingly, we love those boys – and girls – because from them we’ve learned how to properly cook a whole pig in our front yard and how to dance the shag and because they’re just really fun.  And amazingly, not paying attention to my hair is actually very liberating.  I’ll never get over the absolute terror of finding a cockroach in my bathtub, but our landlord has hired someone to address the problem and it seems to be working.   And though I would like very much to find myself back in Alaska one day, I’m very certain that it’s not where I belong.  Because where I belong will always be, has always been, with him.  And let me just say, this is clearly where he belongs and I couldn’t be more grateful to be apart of this with him.  And the finding a job bit? Was difficult mostly because I didn’t know what I was looking for.  As you can imagine, there was a lot of scribbling in notebooks, a lot of late night talking, a lot of feeling, and a lot of learning.  Eventually, and right on time, I did find something that matters to me, but more importantly and possibly the point of it all is that slowly, miraculously, I was able to embrace the not knowing and the things I didn't plan on and began to feel braver and more full and sure and forward-moving. 

If I’m completely honest, we’re making a life here - together - and I love what we’re becoming and what we’re sharing.  This is exactly where we’re supposed to be at precisely this time in our lives, doing what we’re doing and I’m so thankful for it all.     

SOOOOO…

In the spirit of creating and sharing, we’re going to give this a go one more time.  Though I can guarantee that I’ll never again get this personal on the internet, you will find a basic guide to Jacob and Liz here. Welcome to our (southern) life!