There’s nothing like anniversaries to get you thinking about how life has changed.

Last week was the six month anniversary of my move back to Arkansas and it has me thinking about who I am now, versus who I was when I packed up my life and left Boston. While I’m definitely not saying I’m a drastically different person, I have noticed a few things that have changed.

So here goes! Four things I’ve realized about myself since moving back home:

First is a really good one: I LOVE being a homeowner just as much as I thought I would! Although to be honest, it still hasn’t quite sunk in yet. But getting to hang things without wondering if the landlord will be mad and being able to paint my walls are helping. I imagine that once the blue laminate countertops in the kitchen finally go, it will have REALLY hit home that this place is mine.

The second thing I’ve realized is also pretty great: I’m a LOT happier here. I really hate to rag on Boston because it sounds so negative and ungrateful, but when I think about my life there, it feels like I was living in this frustrated, abandoned fog that I just couldn’t find my way out of. Perhaps it was the fact that winter lasts so much longer there (I’m pretty sure I have seasonal depression). Now that I am back here in Arkansas, I feel so much lighter and optimistic and it’s been very healing to feel so happy again.

The third thing I’ve realized is actually two sides of the same coin, and it has to do with how I view myself. I became much more confident in Boston… but also so much more selfish (which I am trying SO hard to stop being). I know it is because of the circumstances that led me to move to Boston and how I helped myself grow while I was there. It was a time for me to focus on my self-awareness and learn what I really wanted and who I really was.

But I also wonder if maybe I might have taken it a little too far. Looking back, I think improving myself maybe came at the expense of ever looking outside myself. However, I’ve been given many opportunities (and some hard talks with my mom… ) to realize I needed to change and to start looking outside myself again.

Ugh… that one is kind of a heavy one. The fourth thing is a bit happier (although bear with me, because it doesn’t sound that way at first): I’m not as independent and tough as I had convinced myself I was.

(The number of stupid things I call my dad about now that I’m a homeowner… For example:

  • The lights aren’t working in my room. Do you think there are ghosts in my house?
  • Should I get a metal or a plastic mailbox?
  • I ran out of propane the coldest week of the season… what am I supposed to do?! 
  • Or my personal favorite: Do you think this raccoon has rabies?)

But I think this is also a really good thing. I tried so hard to become this strong, independent woman (which is great!), but I’ve realized that along with that, I was also developing a sense of bitterness towards the world and even scarier, to my Heavenly Father. There were times when I told myself that because He wasn’t answering my prayers, that I could just figure things out myself and be happy on my own. But God never leaves us and He doesn’t want us to be alone. I’ve been reminded of this constantly for the past six months. Slowly I am shedding the bitterness and learning to hope and be happy again. And that is by far the best thing I’ve learned since moving back.

So there are the four most important things I’ve learned these past six months. For all that I struggled with in Boston, I have noticed a greater sense of confidence that has been growing slowly over the past three years and that has been made apparent since moving back.

I’ve struggled a lot with figuring out why I was in Boston, because I don’t feel like anything drastic or life changing happened for myself or anyone I knew there. But maybe the reason was more subtle than that. Maybe it was simply to teach me about my strengths and weaknesses, so that I could really, deeply understand who I am and what I want. If that’s the only reason…. I think that’s a pretty good reason.