Plans...

Okay... so we have to move. Not right this minute, but we need to make some plans. We have always known we would move. When we chose to adopt our first child from Ethiopia and we looked around the corner of South Dakota where we live, we knew it wouldn't be fair to bring our beautiful brown baby into the sea of whiteness. We have jobs we like with great benefits and a house that is truly our home, but the school our kids go to is 99% white. This doesn't bother Meron yet, although it may in the future, but Hana doesn't like it.  She hates to be different, and her beautiful dark brown skin is a novelty in her class. People touch her hair. They feel her skin. They ask her questions. Some kids might be tolerant of this, but she isn't... and she shouldn't have to be. So... we need to move. Someplace she doesn't stand out in a crowd for her appearance. Someplace where our kids can be around people of all colors.  We want this to be our last move. We want a home and roots, because I don't like the idea of our kids needing to rebuild their lives over and over again. Even now, with one in kindergarten and two in preschool, they have friends. Social lives. There are people they love here. Those things are hard to lose and we don't want them to have to do it more than once, so where ever we choose to move, we want to be there for at least the next 15 years.  The problem is, the needs and wants of all of the people in our family are vastly different.
The kids need diversity, opportunities to explore the things that they like and have more options other than football or cheer leading, close proximity to grandparents (because Meron wilts like a flower if she doesn't have frequent Grammy time and my mom doesn't fair much better) and ideally, a house in the country so they have room to run and play independently.
Nathan needs someplace he can open a taekwondo gym and expand. This is more difficult than it sounds, because he is part of an organization and he can only open schools in areas that aren't already taken by other members of this organization.
I want to live in a specific area... I need trees and hills and water and green. It soothes my soul and I have spent the last 7 years living in South Dakota which, while has its own type of barren, desolate beauty, does not fulfill this need. I also need to live in a place that tends toward liberalism. There are wonderful people here, and many people I have grown to treasure (even some that are very conservative). But it gets tiresome. I am always walking that line between trying to educate people about issues about which I am passionate and realizing that I need to live in this place and not offend all of the people around me. I often don't feel at home, and that is a hard way to feel when you are trying to build a life in a place.
So... all of these things? They are impossible. In no place on the planet can all of these needs be met. So what do we do? Who loses? Well... me. The kids obviously come first.  That takes out about 90% of the towns in the area where my parents live. And then it comes down to what Nathan and I want. There are two areas left... one that has the things that I want, one that has the things that he wants. And I'm going to lose. Taekwondo is his career... how can I ask him to give up something so important to him for something as abstract as...pretty.  It is what it is... I'm kind of sad about it, and Nathan hates to see me give up on the things that make me feel at peace, but I don't see any way around it.  So, what's my point?
I don't know. I think it is more of a question... how do you balance in a family. How do you make sure everyone has what is most important to them? How do you maintain who you are and what makes your heart happy when you have to weigh that against the needs of the family as a whole? Marriage is hard, yo. Families are hard. I wouldn't change my family. I love them. I love us. But that doesn't make it less hard. And that doesn't mean I don't sometimes long to be able to have things my way.