When we rolled into Wichita last Sept. 8, we had no
idea what to expect. Well, we expected to close on our house the next day, and
we knew Nick would start his new job a week later. And corn. For some reason,
we expected a lot of corn.
Our uncertainty about Wichita had raised many important questions
in the days and weeks before the move:
- What if we can’t find decent barbecue in Wichita?
- What if no one in Kansas likes football?
- What if there are tornadoes on a daily basis?
- What if we just hate it there?
So we rationalized. “We can stomach anything for a few
years” became our mantra of sorts.
Lucky for us, we’re doing more than tolerating Wichita. Simply
put, we love it here.
I have emergency contacts.
When I registered Harper for school last fall, I had no idea
who to list as a non-parental emergency contact. My realtor? Someone on Nick’s
staff? I honestly had no clue. I had a hard time this year too, but for different reasons entirely. I just couldn’t decide who to list from among a list of people I inherently trust
to pick up my children in the event I’m carried off to Oz by a stray tornado.
Unless you’ve moved to a place where you don’t know a soul,
it’s impossible to understand how vulnerable you feel during the first few
months on your own. Now that we've got a cadre of
people to call on when we need help – or just want to get together and grill
some burgers – we really feel at home. And it seems like a throwaway statement to say we've made some really good friends, but we've made some really good friends. Kind, generous, fun people whom I would miss terribly if we were to move again.
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| Harper and her friend Abby playing dress up. Goof balls. |
We’re busy. Maybe too busy.
When we moved to Wichita, I vowed that each and every one of us would
get involved in various civic, social and athletic activities, largely as a way to gain emergency contacts. I think I may have taken that effort to the extreme.
So far we’ve done adaptive fitness, cooking and gymnastics at
the YMCA, Challenge Games track and field and Miracle League Kickball, spina
bifida playgroup, preschool, mommy’s day out co-op, PTO, MOPS, AWANA, served as
life group leaders, door greeters, cookie bakers and nursery keepers at church, sat on United Way committees, participated in Wichita INSIGHTS and that’s just
the girls and I. That doesn’t even include Nick’s professional commitments or
anything that's strictly social, of which there's a lot.
Sometimes I think I bit off more than we could collectively chew.
But we’re having fun, meeting lots of folks and stepping outside our comfort
zones, which I’ve come to believe is a very good thing when you’re acclimating
to a new place.
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| Harper playing Miracle League kickball. |
It’s not perfect
Don’t get me wrong. Wichita isn’t all sunshine and roses. There are an inordinately high number of
pizza delivery guy robberies, the extreme temperatures and perpetual wind are cataclysmically
atrocious (got my thesaurus out for that one), and we’re at least three hours
from anywhere “else.”
Plus, Wichita has this weird east/west divide. When you meet someone new, you get the traditional
what do you do/got kids/where are you from? line of questioning. But it also
includes “what side of town do you live on?” And depending on your answer, you
automatically feel kinship or subdued animosity from the other party.
We’re west siders and therefore dubbed “Squinters” by the
kind folks out east. It took me a while to figure it out, but when I did, I had
to admit “Squinters” is a really good way to creatively disparage your
neighbors. See, west siders have to stare into the sun both driving to and from
work, so we squint a lot. It fits.
(I've yet to come up with anything better to call those
blasted east siders, but I give it an inordinate amount of thought every day.)
And the barbecue situation here is questionable at best.
Good pulled pork is hard to come by. People tell me I should eat the brisket. I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Might just wait til I’m back in the South
where barbecue involves a pig as the good Lord intended.
Until then, I'll just have to suffer through with good friends, good times and a good pair of sunglasses.
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| Ellie running through the daisies at one of our favorite parks. |
