Monday, June 28, 2010

Filling Your Lung Capacity

Our lives are in transition again, though on the backside of it. Several weeks ago we moved. We left our first home together. We left our character-filled apartment. We left our beautiful and ever-changing Lake Michigan. We left our 606xx ZIP code. We left our short and very beautiful nature-filled 25-minute commute. We left our cozy neighborhood.

But we gained air conditioning. We gained a parking spot. We gained water pressure. (These may seem small, but they are huge blessings when you've lived for 10 years without them.) We gained the closeness of family. We gained a freedom I hadn't anticipated - being able to leave at any time of the day or night and not have to worry about losing our prime parking place right in front of the apartment building on our one-way street.

You don't always notice when you lose freedom. Sometimes you slowly adjust your "normal" until you are shackled by your actions. It is only when those are loosened, even slightly, that you realize you were in bondage in the first place. It is only when you get a breath of clean, fresh air that you realize how polluted the air you've been breathing has been. It is only now, after nearly a month, that I am experiencing the freedom of being able to enjoy being at people's homes and not watching the clock, trying to figure out how many minutes are left to relax before driving back downtown only to drive around and around the block, stalking anyone nearing a car, waiting for someone else to pull away from the curb to nab their spot. I am enjoying the freedom to leave our new place whenever we like. I am not yet enjoying our new place to the fullest, and I still miss the city, but I am slowly stretching, breathing in, and realizing the potential of my expanded motion, my expanded lung capacity.
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