You can never go back.

In the summer of 2010, when we moved from our peaceful, picturesque town in Colorado to the micro-urban environs of Champaign, Illinois I promised my kids we would return for spring break. Not that it did a whole lot to stem the pointed silences I was being treated to by the sulky teen, but I certainly had to pull everything out of my parental bag of tricks to make the move as tolerable as possible. And so, when March arrived and winter was beginning to cede its grip on our new Midwestern home, we packed up the thermal socks, boots and ski goggles and headed back west.

We spent a day skiing, and another at Mt. Princeton Hot Springs (it is always amazing to me that you can get a tan in Colorado even when the temperatures are not all that bathing-suit friendly). Then, it was time to spend some quality time with old friends. Admittedly there were those who really haven't missed a beat, although we know they've missed us. Their lives are otherwise unchanged since we left. But others shared their plans to move on from the town as soon as degrees were completed, children graduated and so on. People with whom we shared a love of that valley, who shared our opinion of its Shangri-la like qualities were admitting the bloom might be coming off the rose. The economy can be very tough on a small town. My daughter, an avid downtown shopper remarked on how many stores had closed. Parents fretted over proposed budget cuts putting school athletics in jeopardy. Even my husband, whom I worried about almost as much as the teen in terms of adjusting to leaving said "you don't realize how small this place is until you leave it."

This is all to say perhaps leaving what you think of as the perfect home comes at just the right time for you. I have said sometimes you choose home and other times it chooses you. The past seven years have taught me that. I chose this lovely hamlet as home and it was just that for years. When the time came for us to move on, it was very difficult. Was something wrong with our choice? Was it even our doing that sent us there? Would we have ended up where we are now (which, it turns out, is terrific in a number of different ways) if we hadn't chosen to make Colorado our home? I certainly can't imagine coming to the Midwest from Dallas (with all due respect). I just don't think it would have happened.

The truth is, you can never go back. In order to move forward you can't look back. Maybe it's by design that when you go back, it's just never the same. It's smaller, with a different rythm, a tad worn around the edges. Because if you can't go back to my picturesque little town, who could go back anywhere?

On the drive home, the teen brought up looking forward to being back with new friends. If that doesn't prove my theory, nothing will.