This May, I will have been in Vermont seven years. Although the locals might feel differently, I am no longer a Virginian in Vermont, but I have become a Vermonter.

I came to Vermont to be close to someone, to see if that relationship was the one. It was a gamble. I knew that when I moved here. But it seemed a risk worth taking, leaving behind the place you have lived for fifty some odd years. Not a risk everyone would take, not an adventure everyone would take. I am sure at least a few of my friends questioned the choice, thinking perhaps it was too soon after my separation and divorce to do such a thing. That is was more of a reaction than a real choice.

I see it differently. I was a few years out by the time I moved here. It wasn’t done on a whim, but was a choice I came to over time, nearly a year. That’s kind of how I do big changes. I think and pray over them for ages. I look into things. I look into myself.

But all of that is internal work. Hardly anyone sees it. And the few who see it rarely understand that I am not talking idly, so they often are as surprised as anyone once I make my choice. It was that way with this. I thought about it for many months, but when I made the choice, I made it and never looked back.

That too would be a surprise. Typically, on day to day things, I have a “plan B” and often “Plans C, D and E” in place. My kids and I joke that I am a paranoid old broadcast guy, because broadcasters (the industry I worked in for over 30 years) always have a backup plan, and me? I have two of anything important. Two cars. Two hot water heaters. Two computers.

But when I make a big choice – a job, a relationship, a place to live…. I am all in. I didn’t rent a place when I moved to Vermont. I bought a house. I committed.

Commitment used to come easy to me. Love used to come easy to me. Trust used to be second nature. But when my marriage fell apart, those things became hard. Working my way back to my natural state was just that, work. Again, people who had known me a long time might not have seen that. They saw the guy they had always known, who had committed, loved and lived all in. But that guy was pretty much rubble, just like the rest of me.

Buying the house in a strange state, was the first step back, though I didn’t realize it at the time. It was a commitment, not a toe in the water. I had to take a deep breath, even after all the thinking and praying before I did it.

And from that point, I’ve slowly reclaimed some of my ability to commit, trust, love and try new things. But none of it is second nature any longer. It’s work. It’s a choice and at times it scares the hell out of me. I miss the days when it came naturally. I miss them a lot. But perhaps it’s for the best. I didn’t always make the best choices. Most of them worked out because when we are committed to something they often do. But some of them caused me, and likely the people around me, some pain. And I hate that. Maybe this more thoughtful way is healthier for everyone concerned.

The relationship that drew me here did not work out as I had hoped. But I found something else.

I found a peace I did not know I needed. I found confidence in myself again. I found a place of safety. I rediscovered my spirituality (Not my religion, but my connection to God.). I lost a job I loved, but in losing that job, I discovered work that was less a job, and more a calling. I discovered that I enjoy a bit of adventure in my life, just as much as I enjoy the peace and quiet. This became my safe haven, and later, it became my kid’s safe haven as well as one by one, they moved up here while they were in high school.

Not everyone has to leave where they are and move to a whole new place to do those things. I admire those who can work themselves to that better place where ever they are. And perhaps, now, I could do that.

But I couldn’t then. I didn’t know I couldn’t, but looking back, I have come to realize I needed to begin again, hard as it was. I was far more broken than I realized at the time. (And I knew I was pretty broken.) Had I understood the journey I still needed to take, I am not sure I would have had the courage to do in a place without the friends and family I had leaned on for most of my life.

But as it turned out, that’s exactly what I needed. To be free of the crutches of the past, and to go where I had no choice but to spend lots of time looking inside, of struggling, just me and God and a few new people who had no pre-conceived notion of who and what I was or wasn’t. No expectations.

Seven years in, I have reclaimed much of who I was. Mostly the good parts, I hope. And I have found new parts of me that I may have never discovered or had the courage to do or try had I stayed put. I am not the same. I am the same. Some of both

I would like to think I was wise, moving to Vermont. What I was is lucky. What I was is blessed.

And so I am a Vermonter. I love the winter, so much colder and whiter than what I was used to. I love the quarries and tiny towns and sense of communities struggling to be relevant. I love the crazy patchwork of people who live here. I love the new history and geography I have to traverse. I love no longer being certain about anything, because so much of it is still so new. I love my tiny church. I love the abundance of old houses. And I love that this is one of the most tolerant states anywhere. Eccentrics are not just tolerated, but embraced. They hardly notice me here. Natives may never consider me one of them, but they have embraced me anyway. They don’t expect perfection, and they don’t pretend to it. They just are. And they allow me to just be.

The adventure is nowhere near done. At least, I hope not. That perhaps was the best thing to learn. That, even though I am middle aged, there is growth to be had, changes to make, adventures to live. I have always lived in a fear of becoming old at heart. I kinda thought, a decade or so ago, that I had become one of those who were comfortably numb (to quote Pink Floyd). And worse, I was OK with it.

No more. You can’t see my determination in that, but it’s as hard as the slabs of slate in the quarry across from my house.

No more.

Be well. Travel Wisely.

Tom