Our original plan was to go to Chapel Hill, where Rockford would go to graduate school and I’d … well, I’d do something. But, as usual, things didn’t go according to my plans.

The people at Missouri were so much more friendly than the people at Chapel Hill, and the fellowship offer was better at MU. So we headed West.

And I was miserable.

I was thousands of miles from my home, my family and my friends. I didn’t have a job, so I spent my days sitting in our apartment eating cookies and watching reruns of “Newhart” (OK, so that part wasn’t so bad).

Then things started to change. I found a job. I made some friends. I stopped eating so many cookies. I never would have imagined that I’d shed anything but tears of joy when Missouri was in my rearview mirror, but here we are, two months away from moving again, and my heart is aching.