It’s Moving Day!

As odd as this sounds, the COVID19 pandemic has triggered positive memories from all those moving days of my youth. Yeah, we moved a lot. Matter of fact, I attended 11 different schools from grades 1 through 12. And that was one of the biggest blessings in my life for a lot of reasons that are still being revealed to me 40-plus years later. My dad was military. When the orders came down from his commander, we moved. No questions. No debate. We moved. And for a season in life, moving was even easier because we lived in a mobile home that could simply go from location to location. I remember the moves very vividly. Mom would assign different tasks to each of us. My brother and I started in our younger years with being solely responsible for our rooms. Packing our boxes was important (even during the season in the mobile home). If you didn't pack correctly, things got broken. And no matter how organized we thought we were. No matter how well we packed. Things got lost. And things got broken. Always, life changed as the boxes were packed and as the boxes were unpacked. Each time, life changed for us in ways I never fully understood and may never fully understand. As I grew older, the moves would emotionally be harder because I was more aware of friends and community that were being left behind. I didn’t want to lose them. But I knew it was impossible to hold on to those friends because the accumulating prior moves had already proven the adage true -- out-of-sight, out-of-mind. There were times that I laid my head on the pillow at night and cried wishing it could be different. I dreamed of living in one place, rooted down and knowing every single square inch and every single person. But that was not my life  . . . So, I learned to let go and make the best of the move. And that was the hidden gift. When I opened my eyes to the journey, I began to see parks, museums, schools, places . . .people . . . that if I had lived in one spot and one community, I may have never experienced. Being the new kid with a different accent taught me to listen first . . . And while listening, I heard different perspectives. Slowly, it became fun to unpack the box and learn everything I could about Washington DC, Abilene or St. Louis . . . I found peace in my journey. Moving Day changed from something to fear . . . to something to embrace. Then it stopped. Dad retired. I left home. And Cindy and I settled down after graduate school in one place – rooted down like I had dreamed about. Ironically, I became restless when we didn’t move and missed moving day. I wondered if I chose wrong. Maybe we should have picked a life of packing and unpacking boxes every couple years – experiencing new friends, new communities, new cultures – learning new parks and new museums –  embracing change as our never aging teacher. But then again, maybe we did move and maybe I just didn’t recognize it because I was so accustomed to boxes and new Air Force bases as the telltale signs of my moves.  Maybe moving is not always physical as much as it is mental. During this COVID19 pandemic as I look across our businesses and see the faces and the people, I know we are being called to pack a lot of boxes and move – maybe not like I used to do – maybe not to a new physical location. But a move, nonetheless. As businesses and as people, we are going to be in a new place when this pandemic is over. Those businesses and people that will survive, are the ones who recognize this movement and embrace it as quickly as possible. Hold fast to your cherished memories but not so doggedly that you miss the opportunity to experience the new location where we will all find ourselves soon enough . . . it is Moving Day . . . oh, by the way, this won’t be the last Moving Day . . . we are always moving, but sometimes you can see it more clearly than other times and this virus is slowing us down enough that we should be able to see we are moving as a society and as a people. Where are you moving to? You better know because if you don’t, you may be one of those lost boxes that we never found.