Leave Well to Land Well

Our family just relocated from Washington, DC to Philadelphia. As the daughter of a US State Department Foreign Service family who made 5 international moves before the age of 18, my response to the impending transition was, “game on.” 

I have long maintained that efficiency is my love language. Each weekend for the second half of the summer, we tackled a different part of the house, slowly encroaching the center of our lives: shed, basement, guest room, wall hangings. . .leaving the clothes, kitchen and most beloved toys for last. Through the process, with the tenderness of a drill sergeant, I rallied the troops – by which I mean my long-suffering spouse – with the cadence: “If you want to land well, you have to leave well…leave well to land well.  LEAVE WELL! LAND WELL!”

So I built a timeline and checklist for packing, interfaced with the moving company, built a spreadsheet to track the contents of each box. I implemented a patent-pending color, number, and letter duct-tape system for marking boxes and drafted room diagrams taped to the door frames of each room in the new house so furniture could be moved once and every box could land in the room where it will be unpacked and put away. By all accounts, the move was a success. I am very, very good at this.

As you can imagine, I am also a delight to live with through this process.  That is if, when I say “delight,” you are imagining Tom Hanks’ character in A League of Their Own, shouting at his players, “There’s no crying in baseball!”

But this move was my first as a mom. Now I’m responsible for and to a whole human person with all the big but unnamed big feelings appropriate to a two year old. About once a day he asks to go “home” and is not fooled by the familiar furniture, his favorite toys, and even his parents (for crying out loud!) He knows this isn’t home. At least not yet.  

At bedtime, we ask what he is thankful for and every night since moving he tells us three words: “Hannah. Evan. Amen.” Every night, he remembers his two best friends –  the kids of his DC babysitter – with whom he played trucks and built train tracks and learned (more or less) about taking turns. He’s not ready to be thankful for the larger new house or the dope play area I created for him.  Not the playground one block south, the library one block north or the soccer class I scrambled to get him signed up for at the last minute. His grief refuses any attempt to systematize by color, number or letter. It won’t be stuffed in a box or managed in a spreadsheet. 

“If you want to land well, you have to leave well.” I hold to it. And two-year old Isaac is teaching me that leaving well is about so much more than details, duct-tape systems and spreadsheets. Leaving well leaves room for big feelings that defy timelines. Inefficient as it may be, grief over what is left behind is part of the leaving and landing well.

Like many of you, I’m in the midst of another transition, a denominational relocation. Only I have no idea how to structure a spreadsheet for this move. Who knows when the movers are going to arrive. The organizational system we once relied on – church order – offers a great color-coded system. . .except we hired movers with (selective) color-blindness. 

I’m still determined that “landing well depends on leaving well.” There will be much that is familiar to welcome me into a new denomination. But it won’t be home. At least not right away. I’m going to miss knowing and being known. I’ll miss the ease of muscle memory that goes along with belonging to a place and a people.  I’m going to be fumbling for light switches and tripping over unfamiliar corners for awhile yet.  Inefficient as it may be, grief over what is left behind is part of the leaving and landing well. My grief over this goodbye won’t be stuffed in a box or managed in a spreadsheet. 

I am grateful for those with the knowledge-base and entrepreneurial energy to navigate this transition on behalf of those of us who’ve leased tubs or purchased boxes but have no idea where to start. I am grateful for those preparing to receive us and who are similarly scrambling to assemble rental leases, neighborhood maps, and welcome baskets. I believe there are good things ahead for me and for many of us.  But, at bedtime, if you ask me what I’m thankful for, my response is not unlike Isaac’s three word answer. 

“CRCNA. As-was. Amen.”