You know that old saying,”The Grass Isn’t Always Greener On The Other Side?” It’s true, entirely accurate, and I’m willing to bet most of you would agree with me. You know those times when you’re awake, but there is that tiny bit of hope you’re dreaming. There have been times I’ve wished I had magic powers to undo everything or even a time machine would be neat.
Has there ever been a time in your life when you wished you were dreaming, had magic powers, or a time machine to undo something you’d recently done? Switchers remorse, it’s something we wish we could undo or maybe even run away. However, when you run things tend to catch up with you.
I can think of several, okay a whole lot of switchers remorse happened in my life, but the first one that comes to mind was a big one, lol. I was 22, single, and living the real life, or I was fixing to be as soon as I got my last check from work, loaded my car, left everything, including memories behind me and headed as far away as possible. Yes, running away from my problems, but at the time I called it moving on lol.
I’m from New Mexico, at the time was living in Albuquerque, NM, lost my boyfriend, was heartbroken, I didn’t want to go do anything, didn’t answer my friends calls, and just wanted to run away. I was depressed and needed something new, I should have just colored my hair, but NO being the extremist I am I packed my bags and moved to Lafayette Louisiana.
See I ran into an old friend online, she moved to Converse Louisiana. Oh, you haven’t heard of it? It’s because her house is probably the only house in the town. That is if you can find it – 24 miles down this road by a big tree, left, right at the house with the tire in the yard, keep going straight when you see big rock by the big tree, left a mile after the white house (which is NOT WHITE), and so on. It’s not that bad, but it seemed that bad at the time. NO, I didn’t ask a whole lot of questions I was just excited to do something new.
So I loaded up my car, not a clue about anything, and drove all the way to Converse Louisiana. With some magical force and my smartphone, I was able to find my way to Converse and the only house in town. According to my reliable network, the house was straight ahead. No, this has to be wrong there isn’t even a place to get gas. Oh, yes it was it my smartphone didn’t deceive me, although I wished it had. I knew this because the town of 4 was waving me down, yelling, I remember thinking drive away. My tummy hit my feet, and I cursed my reliable network, why can’t you be wrong, just this once. Hey smartphone, I hope you know this means you’re working overtime tonight to help me find a way out of this crazy situation you got us into, lol. Sadly, it wasn’t my phones fault; I couldn’t blame it for being reliable. I had to suck it up and take the blame for this one, but smartphone you are still working overtime tonight!
I had a great visit with my friend, but as soon as she went to bed my smartphone and I went to work! My poor mom, dad, and all my family back home they were worried sick and doing everything they could to help me get back home. After talking with my mom, I called my friend in Lafayette Louisiana. She invited me to stay with her for the weekend; I ended up getting an apartment in Lafayette. It was more my style – people, jobs, restaurants, things to do, and the people were amazing! Oh, mardi gras was AWESOME! I was having fun, making friends, working, making killer money, and living the life you know. Then it happened….
Darn it, switcher’s remorse caught up with me again. I should have known, switcher remorse is sort of like karma, it will catch up with you when you least expect it. After a long talk with myself I discovered I loved Louisiana, made good money, had buddies, and none of it mattered. I wanted friends, not party buddies and didn’t care about everything because I missed everyone back home.
I woke up at 6 am to get ready for work and knew what I needed to do; I didn’t even quit my job first. Once again, I would load up my car, leave things behind, and run away. Only, this time running away didn’t feel the same because I was finally moving in the right direction. All I cared about was going home, being close to my family, and hearing my mom tell me everything would be okay.
My mom has always said I had to learn things the hard way, and I guess she is right. I suppose I need to know for myself before I agree, understand, or even realize I feel a certain way. Of course I was young, that move cost a whole lot of money, which is gone and I’ll never get it back. However, it’s not about the money, time, or even the fact I came home. It’s so much more than that. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve grown up a lot since I was 22, but that was one of the most valuable lessons in my life. I was headed in the wrong direction, took things for granted, I thought everything I had and needed mattered. It wasn’t until I was empty inside I learned what is and weren’t important in life. Things don’t make me happy, they never have and never will. They can be a band-aid for a moment or two, but that band-aid will eventually come off.
Since my move, I have not lived more than 3 hours car ride from my parents. I can think of 1000 places I would rather live than Carlsbad, NM but I happily I call this home because I see everyone who is important to me regularly. Even more importantly all the people that matter in my life are a huge part of my children’s life, and that’s what is important to me.
Sometimes we have to leave something behind for something we think is better at them time to see the value in what we had. You know the other old saying, “You don’t realize what you had until it’s gone.” Thankfully in my case, I only had to drive 15 hours home to get it back.
