Today is September 1st, that marks 90 days since I've moved to Georgia. 3 whole months that I haven't been a Texan....just the new girl in a small town, on a small private college campus, and restarting my life one day at a time.
My move to Georgia happened quickly. I had a whirlwind interview process that led me to an amazing job as an Assistant Director of Residential Living at a small, private college in the hills of Northern Georgia. I moved from a busy suburb of Dallas, Texas to the small town of Demorest, Georgia where there are rolling hills, greenery everywhere, mountains, lakes, and whole new lay of the land. From a bustling campus of 29,000 students and growing with over 6,000 live on students, to a small and growing camps with 700 live on and 2,400 students on two campuses. It is definitely a change in so many ways, but it was change I didn't know that I needed until I was knee deep into it.
I left UTD for Piedmont College for a new experience where I could grow in my job and as a professional. I have definitely made a transition and I'm realizing my strengths and finding a ton of areas to grow in. Going from a long term member of staff to a new person in an ever growing department is a change, but I'm also an outsider and that has been a transition. I am happy to report that I love my job, my department, my new school, and my new home (except in August during training when every Res Life professional questions our own sanity!) The change has been remarkable and as I was sitting this weekend reflecting on these last three months I've noticed some big things.
Change is hard. I hate change in some ways and love it in others. No matter what my life is constantly changing and it is something that I love, embrace, struggle with, and avoid. Welcome to me living my career in education via Student Affairs where change is always happening. Change has been hard, but this change has been really good for me. My health (minus the campus crud I'm healing from in the form of bronchitis right now) has improved. My migraines overall are 75% better, my allergies have vastly improved, I'm not needing to be adjusted 2 to 3 times a week to make it work (fun fact I've only been adjusted twice since I've moved) and I feel great. My inflammation in my body is lowering and my Gluten Free diet is going better since I am back into the swing of things and more regular schedule. My sugar is normal, my blood pressure is within range, and the only thing that I am really needing to work on in my health journey is my weight gain and my cholesterol being higher than normal, but since stopping the Crestor like I needed to due to the extreme issues I was having, this was expected and my new doctor here is working with me. I feel good.
I am less stressed overall. I am sleeping well, handling work day and after hours work well alongside not dreading heading into the office, but rather realizing I want to do more work than I can fit in a day because I am being fed in a way professionally that I hadn't been in a long while. I realized my health, my job, my personal life after the loss of my mom....well it was a mess. Hot mess mamma here I was, but this change has allowed me to breathe in more ways than one.
I didn't realize how much I had outgrown Texas until I left. Don't get me wrong Texas is my home away from Baltimore and the love that I have for it, well I'm an adopted Texan for life with my purple bleeding TCU heart, but Texas....Texas held a lot of things I needed to get away from. I got divorced there, I moved cities from Fort Worth to Dallas, met some great people and some very toxic people and there in Texas I learned to be me again, but me....well I didn't fit there anymore and it took two most traumatizing events in my life that happened in 2017 to push me to find ME again...the real me the Lissa that everyone knew and loved and got lost along the way.
I realized since the move and looking back on my journals from the last year, that I know that I can handle anything that comes at me. I am stronger than I ever imagined. I have survived things in my life and in the last year that I never imagined I would have to face, but much less face and end with my head held high. Ironically it took me being torn apart to find the pieces to put myself back together on my own terms. Grief and grieving look different for everyone and in some ways I'm still grieving things, memories, moments, and dreams. I have slept more in the last year and half than I think ever before and that being as tired as I was just was grieving. My grief isn't gone or over and I still focus on my self-care a lot more than I ever used to, but I know now I have to or the person that I've re-created....she won't make it.
So here I am in a new chapter, building the next part of my life, loving a new area, living day to day with my furbaby, and realizing that I've become more of my momma than I ever imagined and I wouldn't have it any other way.
