Breathless Haste

When we left home to move to Chicago, it felt as if all of my deep Southern roots were being severed. When we arrived in the Midwest, we didn’t know a soul who lived there. It honestly felt as if I had been carried into exile, just as the Israelites had. Eugene Peterson, in his book Run with the Horses, described how I was feeling. He said, “The essential meaning of exile is that we are where we don’t want to be. We are separated from home.”11 I was overwhelmed by this new life in front of me. It was a relational blank slate that I had never experienced before. I looked at people differently—more deeply, more longingly. Wondering with each passing hello or short conversation if that person might become my friend. Surely, I could find a few friends who would help me hang on for the next three years.

Thankfully, many of our South Carolina friends and family came for visits. We were dying to see each one of them, but we hosted about every other weekend for the first year. I felt like a hotel maid and chef, washing sheets, flipping beds, and fixing meals in our small rental house that fit our family but was not big enough for many others. Everyone wanted to tour Chicago, take the train, eat out, shop, and enjoy the river tour of Lake Michigan. These visits were bittersweet. They took a large toll on me emotionally, physically, and financially, and we didn’t have extra money to spend. Honestly, even as those visits were happening, I was depressed. It was hard to let go of everything I knew and start over, and then to have to say goodbye again and again one weekend after another. The root cutting was painful.