Best Shot Monday: Navigating the Black Hole of Change

See that blackness there at the end of the hallway?  You stand there wondering what could be around that corner.  I took this shot inside the abandoned Public School No. 4, otherwise known as the Annie Lytle School, here in Jacksonville the last time I went sleuthing around in there. I've always been attracted to old abandoned buildings. You never know what treasures you will find in there! (And yes, I chose to believe there are only treasures, not bad scary things, and so far that has served me well. Of course, I only go in on bright sunny days.)

Thinking about what's down that hallway resonates with the huge change my family and I are currently navigating.  I shared with you in this post that, after 22 years, I'm leaving FSCJ for a new role. It's a fabulous new role, and I'm very excited about the challenge that lies ahead for me, yet with this role come HUGE changes for my family, and it's that part of our current navigation that we are struggling with.

My last day at FSCJ was this past Friday. It was definitely an emotional day, and walking out of my office for that last time Friday afternoon felt so incredibly surreal. There were definitely a lot of tears shed last week. I've made some great friends at the college, many who have become family, and saying goodbye to those I've worked with for so long was particularly difficult.  Sure, we'll stay in touch, but when go you from working with people day in and day out to not seeing them at all, that comes with a bit of separation anxiety!

This week, having two weeks off between roles, I'm feeling very ungrounded.  I know a big part of that is due to still trying to wrap my head around the physical move, leaving Jacksonville for Tallahassee, and that we still are completely clueless as to where we will be living. I've found an apartment that will work for me in the short run, but we'll need to find a home that will work for us by spring so we can ease the girls into the change.  And that, my friends, is proving difficult.  Sure, there are plenty of lovely homes for sale in Tallahassee.  But since we are not selling our home here in Jacksonville, we'll need to rent there, and finding a rental that is large enough but still affordable, is in good shape, is in the school district we want to be in, and has an owner that will allow two large dogs is turning out to be quite the challenge, at least from here. Hopefully once I'm over there for half the week each week starting in December, I'll have a better opportunity to find something for us.

We've left much of this whole process to faith and are hoping that we'll find both the perfect family to rent our home here and the perfect place to lay our heads in Tallahassee soon. The uncertainty has been quite stressful for this usually very go-with-the-flow girl. It truly does feel like we are jumping into a black hole, wondering where we'll land and what we'll find along the way.  So here's to happy landings and a rainbow at the end of the tunnel.  It's true that no one ever said change was easy.