Homesick Manifesto

I have had a lot of difficulties adjusting since we moved to Texas in May 2006. Most of them were well anticipated - as I was leaving the first long-term "home" I had ever had, and the friends the Lord surrounded me with to give me the family of his making, not biological but the ones with ties that wrap all the way around your heart, and are not easily undone.
There is a lot that could be said about all the places that I have lived. I counted them out once and there are more than 20 different towns in states up and down most of the east coast. My parents' divorce was the cause for a lot of it. My personal insecurities caused me to continue a lot of this pattern into my adult life. However, in 1995 after a three month separation, Travis and I settled in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia - and there we stayed for almost 11 years. I made the best friends I had ever had in my life. These were the people who gathered around when my babies were born, the ones who filled our home with their presence and prayer support when we were in need, rejoiced with us when something good happened, and cried with us when we struggled and suffered. They are the people who would leave toilet paper and laundry detergent on the front seat of our car when they knew Travis was out of work, and point at one another and shrug their shoulders unknowingly when asked about it to preserve our dignity. They are the ones who filled your life with great excitement and surprise in the everyday of it all, side by side. We would hang out in the wee hours of the morning together, play games, talk, laugh, debate. I finally had the family that I had always wanted. I knew moving away would be hard, but felt that we owed it to Travis to get to know his family and try to make a life where he wanted to be.
The thing is, being here has been hell. It isn't the place or the people, but it is truly that my heart is elsewhere. We haven't succeeded in building the family relationships that we had hoped to, and find that we are quite alone. Financially we are in the same boat. With the rising economy, I have realized that in a short amount of time, we will quickly be stuck wherever it is that we live with little life outside, unable to even afford a yearly trip home to the people we love and who love us. I feel that we have made every effort to transplant our hearts here and find that the soil is not conducive to establishing good, healthy roots. I feel that if we don't get back to the soil where we thrive, we will wither and die. The kids have made it clear to me that they feel the same way, which gives me leave to express it fully knowing that I am not the only one who knows that this is not where we belong.
No whining, just a statement. This is my manifesto - my proclamation to the world - I don't know how, and I don't now when, but I am going home.