Crabs Don’t Walk Straight For a Reason

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.

~Confucious

These next months are all transition.  As our family moves from one life to the next, we must maintain the best of what we’re leaving behind, and anticipate the strange tide of an unfamiliar fate.  

Life well lived should blend consistency with adaptation, we are slaves to evolution after all.  We get one life, it should be glorious.  I want my family to take risks, aim high, and be thrilled no matter the outcome, so long as we tried. 

Daisy and I make a habit of never sitting still too long. 

In our time, we’ve made subtle shifts with modest regularity, penciling in a seismic tremor every few years. 

Our pending adventure rests on a fault line. 

Daisy’s lived everywhere; I’ve lived in the same burg since before I could walk.  She’s taught abroad, packing her rucksack with lessons learned in many countries, on several continents; I’ve rarely left my city. 

A craving to travel, born long ago, is now roaring inside me. 

I want to see everything I haven’t, learn what I don’t know, and visit places that will fill me in a way that the same half a million street signs stuck deep in the concrete of my own city never could.  Being able to find success as a writer, means my office can fit in a knapsack. 

Who am I kidding? 

In another three years, I’ll be slipping it next to my wallet. 

Few things are as romantic as the thought of working wherever I am, whenever I happen to find myself there.  And though success from the keyboard is a matter of when not if, this period is paramount to our preparation. 

Right now, we are hermit crabs looking for a bigger and better shell.  We engage in daily discussion about what’s hiding behind tomorrow’s shadow, but sometimes we get anxious for the sun to illuminate an obvious direction. 

But Writer Dad, wouldn’t overnight success be wrong?

Yes, it would.

Just as nine months of pregnancy prepares the body for the sleepless nights and new, exhausting lifestyle, we need this time to draw ourselves together.  

The biggest difficulty is knowing when to pull the plug.  We have families that are depending on us.  When our world changes, theirs will too. 

We know we’re going, but we’re not sure when. 

In the meantime, we must continue to look our clients in the eye, do the best we can to educate and nurture their children while they’re with us, and believe that everything is for a reason, and all in good time. 

A hermit crab must be sure his new home is right before he leaves his old one to the tide.

Writer Dad

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