Nemo

It's the last day of school over here, and while my classroom is ripe with the scents of Clorox cleaners, sweaty kids, and Sharpie markers as yearbooks are furiously passed around and signed, the sound that has filled the room is Finding Nemo.

One of my favorite Disney movies, it's what I chose for background noise this year--my sort of "You have to be quiet because someone might be trying to watch!" Namely, me.

And it wasn't until bell three that I realized the timeliness of showing this movie and my current emotional state.

About a month ago, Greg and I randomly chose to put our house back up for sale.

Daily vaccuming, dusting, scouring and toy-putting-awaying, and within a week we were sold, a far cry from our predicament last year.

We found ourselves excited about the potential of all that was available to us: do we go here or there? Build brand new or renovate an old farmhouse? Or something in between? Do we try a new area?

And then my questions got a bit more panicky: what about the schools? Will we ever find a gym like our current one? (I know, it's so silly--so silly--but it's our social hub, our kids love it, and I can't bare to part with it!) What if our new grocery store doesn't offer marinated sun dried tomatoes in an olive bar? What if we pick the wrong suburb? What if we pick a place and Will is bullied at that school but he wouldn't have been at the other one?

How can I possibly know that we are doing the right thing?!

And here's Finding Nemo: Marlin and Clara find the perfect anemone, and they love the neighborhood, and the next thing you know, a big fish ate all their babies.

I don't want a big fish to eat my babies! 

Why do I feel like someone might judge me for preferring manicured yards and pretty flower beds in the same suburb in which both Greg and I were raised?

Why is it not okay to love where you came from?

When I first started my yoga teacher training many years ago, and everyone was going around in a circle doing introductions and sharing things they loved, I shrunk a little with each answer given: I did not love kale, definitely not in smoothies; I didn't have a background in massage or fitness; I had never considered living on a commune; and I had no desire to even think about something called "vegan mayonnaise."

Instead, I sheepishly confessed that I shower twice a day and read People magazine and celebrity gossip websites and have an addiction to gummy bears.

That, really, is who I am.

It is that moment I come back to again and again to remind myself that it is more than okay to love where you came from.

To love who you are.

To be afraid of making "wrong" choices, when really it's not wrong so much as it is just difficult.

To embrace everything that makes you you, gummy bears and celebrity gossip, and manicured lawns, and hardwood floors, and plantation shutters, and flower beds full of tulips in the spring, impatiens in the summer, and mums in the fall, and PTA bake sales, and sending your kids to the same place you went to school.

Who is anyone to judge what we love, where we are comfortable?

So that's what Greg and I did: we embraced our roots, realized how much we love them, and we picked an amazing house that becomes ours in July.

And I keep the gym. And my olive bar marinated sun-dried tomatoes.

In the end, whether we made the "right" choice is irrelevant. "Right" is where our family is.

And a big fish can't eat us if we're together.