sitting here in limbo:
a newcomer's reflection on change & transition
by lisa horak

My family and I are new to town. I don’t know how much longer I can claim that, but for now it’s still accurate. We moved to Asheville in early October, from Annandale, Virginia, just a hop, skip, and a jump from our nation’s capital. Unless you happen to be driving on the Beltway, and then it’s more like a marathon than any hop, skip or jump I’ve ever done.

That was home. This is not—yet.

Right now this is still someplace in between vacation and a whole new existence. I am still in the stage where I feel as though we are living in someone else’s house and living their lives. Being in limbo is hard.

We had lived in our home in Annandale for six years, and in the Washington, DC area for much longer. My husband and I met and courted and married there, and our two daughters were born there. I was raised in Baltimore, Maryland, and aside from four years away at college, had always lived in the vicinity. Our ties to the region are deep.

We left behind friends that felt like family. We left behind my parents—my children’s grandparents—altering an irreplaceable relationship. My girls, who are three and five, had a slew of playmates. We lived in a quiet neighborhood in an excellent school district. We could walk to the community swimming pool and the elementary school. We had neighbors who looked out for our house and our dog and our kids. Life was good.

But we also had gridlock and too many jam-packed strip malls. It took my husband an hour to commute less than 10 miles to his job. We had a sniper running loose. We had the constant looming threat of terrorism. Life was not perfect.

And then there was the issue of mountains: we had none. It took a few hours to drive to where the concrete and development gave way to forests, but by the time we fought bumper-to-bumper traffic to get there, we were exhausted. So after playing “Where Should We Live When We Grow Up” year after year, we moved to Asheville. Like so many others, we were lured by Asheville’s beautiful mountains, funky arts scene, and sophistication. We wanted to live in a smaller place where we could make a difference in a community.

So here we are. And still, limbo is hard.

My husband is working for an environmental non-profit organization. My kids love their pre-school. We live in a bigger house in a friendly neighborhood and we are slowly meeting people. We marvel at the lack of traffic. The worst traffic in Asheville is about a hundred times better than that of Washington, DC on its lightest traffic days. We have found a church that is warm and welcoming. We have discovered Beanstreets, the Health Adventure, Chimney Rock, and the view from the Grove Park Inn. And we have mountains—glorious mountains—rising up in all directions.

But we are still missing the crucial piece of the puzzle: close friendships. We are rediscovering how hard it is to develop new friends—not just acquaintances but real pour-your-heart-out or just-hang-out kind of friends, which are so fundamental to our lives. Our closest relatives and dearest friends are 500 miles away, and we have no one comparable here. How lovely it would have been to take all our favorite people with us and transplant them to this wonderful city.

Sadly, we can’t do that. So my kids are learning the art of e-mail and e-greeting cards. We make a ridiculous number of long distance calls to announce the most trivial of news. We send artwork to and receive packages from our family. And we explore this new wilderness, just the four of us. One family away from all that is familiar. One family learning to love a new life.

So if you see us around looking lost or lonely, greet us warmly. We’re new to town.

Lisa Horak is a stay at home mom raising two young daughters, Molly and Isabel. She has written for non-profit organizations and is the co-editor of Heart of the Land and Off the Beaten Path, a ficton and non-fiction anthology of nature writing for The Nature Conservancy. She recently moved to Asheville from Washington, D.C., and is currently working on her first children’s book.