Our first days in Michigan

*Sigh*

This move easily has been the most exciting, but it's also been the most chaotic, exhausting, and the one that's thrown us the most curve balls.  From running out of diapers on a stretch of Montana highway to unexpectedly having to install a floor in our rental, we've had our patience tested.  We're still not settled, we still haven't done full grocery shopping.

But all of that doesn't really matter.  I mean, it kind of does, right?  I'm not going to lie and say that I haven't let out a big F-bomb when I've tripped over the tool used to cut the laminate floor for the third time; that I haven't lost my patience over finances; that adjusting to Ella and A sleeping in the same room hasn't been difficult.

Over the past few days, I've wanted to fast forward through the journey, through all the middles and the unknowns and hit play on the end.  The end without student loans and renting and moving and U-Hauls and not having enough money for work pants.

But, again, all of that doesn't really matter, because I (we) have been able to step back.  We can leave the unfinished floor and piled high boxes and laugh hysterically over a 3 dollar ice cream with friends, watch our kids jump around with the very people who I used to jump around with, and sit around a table with people who were kind enough to stock our fridge so we wouldn't have to worry.

And it's in being able to step back that allows me to reset and appreciate the journey as I should.  It's in the middles and the unknowns where we grow, build, find success.  I know one day, we will reach the end when we have our own house and I'll own more than one pair of post-baby work pants.  And what will we do when we get there?

We'll look back.  On the times when we didn't buy cheese for so many months to save money, when we packed up our whole family and moved across the country, on the times when we questioned and budgeted.

So as I sit here at midnight on a work night superficially pissed off but really, deeply joyful, I'm soaking in these pictures from our first days in Michigan.  And reminding myself even though the middles of life can be all the crap I usually want to fast forward through, that I rather live in a U-Haul for the rest of my life if it means getting to be around these people, these generous, loving, hilarious Detroiters.