Coming Home to Dixie

This move, this moment, is the culmination of a thousand little choices, doubts, memories, and prayers. It started with a random Zillow listing back in February – an email from an agent that I nearly overlooked. At the time, Jim and I were knee-deep in remodeling plans for our current home, and we’d just found a general contractor we really liked. On that same day, my friend who’s a real estate attorney let us know that the deed to transfer our current house into our names was ready for us to sign. It was like the universe asked us one clear question: Should we stay or should we go?

What followed was a flurry of searching. We looked all over the South, but my heart kept drawing me back to Mississippi. I had spent part of my childhood in Alabama and went to high school in Mississippi. The fields, the people, the slowness of time there – those things feel like home to me in a way that California never quite has. We had big dreams for land – Jim’s dream was 100 acres, mine was just enough for animals, flowers, and space to breathe. That dream farm found us faster than we expected.

But this blog isn’t just about real estate or logistics. It’s about the deeper journey – our family’s journey of healing. I was adopted from foster care, and now I’m a mother to two beautiful girls who were also adopted from foster care. As we prepare to drive across the country – two adults, two kids, three dogs, four cats, a bird, and all the chaos that comes with us – I plan to share the adventure in real time. We’ll pass through states and landscapes, yes – but we’ll also be passing through memory and reflection.

Because as we pack up boxes and say goodbye to this chapter, I can’t help but revisit my own story – how I went from a barefoot little girl picking plums and chasing lightning bugs on a foster home farm in Alabama, to a withdrawn reader navigating the quiet, rule-heavy house of my adoptive parents, to a woman who now dares to build a new life filled with animals, laughter, and healing.

Some of my most cherished memories come from that last foster home – running wild with my foster siblings, digging potatoes out of the ground and eating them like apples, and dreaming under the hot Alabama sun. I remember what it felt like when my brother and I got our book of pictures from the people who wanted to adopt us. It was exciting and we were lavished with presents at our new home, but as the days went by, I remember the ache I felt when I realized I wasn’t quite wanted, and how books became my refuge, my secret world of color and sound in a life that sometimes felt muted.

So now, as we prepare to move into a new home with 90 acres of land, a barn, and my own office (finally!), I feel like I’m stepping into a dream I didn’t know I still believed. My two little babydoll sheep, Dale and Ernie, will arrive at the end of the summer, and Dolly will be joining us next Spring. It’s all coming together. Sometimes the dreams we scribble in the margins of our lives come back in full color.

Even my work like has shifted in tandem with this move. After five years at my job and uncertainty from my boss about working out of state, I took a leap and landed a new job – with better pay and the flexibility we need. I started last month and I’m glad I took that leap. I needed to push myself and this move was a great incentive to do so.

This blog will be a window into both the literal and emotional miles we travel – moving across the country, yes, but also moving deeper into healing, into motherhood, into rootedness. We are coming home to Dixie. And not just geographically. We’re coming home to something truer, older, and more honest in ourselves.

This is the journey of healing across generations. Of resisting the silence that trauma leaves behind. Of raging, softly but persistently, toward the light.

Welcome to our story. Welcome to the road ahead.