The Present's Offering: Home Is Where You Make It

Postcard #2

Historic Downtown Brunswick, February 2025

A year ago, if you told me we’d be leaving Atlanta to move to a small town in coastal Georgia, I would have laughed and shaken my head in disbelief. Atlanta had been my home for 8 years and my husband’s for 10. He originally moved there for work, and I followed him two years later, seeking to close the distance in our long-distance relationship.

Two years later, we married and began our lives together in the city’s suburbs. Was it perfect? No. After living four years in DC during college, where everything was close and accessible – I explored and commuted on foot and via the metro – I always called Atlanta a faux city, thanks to the ridiculous distance you had to drive and the traffic you had to fight just to reach its different boroughs and neighborhoods. But even with its quirks, bougieness, and imperfections, it was my dream.

As a middle schooler, I remember listening to Kelly Clarkson’s song “Breakaway” as she crooned about growing up in a small town, looking out her window, dreaming of what could be, praying that she could break away. I would join her voice, turning the song into a prayer, hoping that I, too, could break away to a bigger city, where my dreams might become reality.

Growing up visiting family and reading books set in Atlanta, moving there became a dream, and I was set on making it happen. So when it came time for high school graduation, I did the only thing I could think of as a high school student – apply for colleges there. While my eyes were set on Spelman, God’s eyes were set on Howard University, because I was blessed with a full tuition scholarship to attend. I quickly fell in love with DC, happy to give up my dream for the city that won me over. But it’s funny how God still has a way of working, giving us the very things we forgot we prayed for.

When I eventually moved to join my husband later, I didn’t realize that I was living a dream until we were forced to make a hard decision to move. While we had briefly discussed potentially moving one day, we had no idea or intention that the time would be approaching this soon. After all, after eight years, Atlanta had become home.

So when my husband got a job that brought us to coastal Georgia, I didn’t know how to feel. We were moving to the Golden Isles, but it didn’t feel very golden to me, as a person who repels change. When I first got off the exit and saw the parsley-looking evergreen trees free from fall foliage in the middle of the season, I just remembered thinking, “What did we do?” Everything in the environment – the temperature, the plants, the nature – was completely different, and I grieved the loss of the familiar.

Slowly, I came around as I immersed myself in the community, finding local gems and mainstays that felt more like home, the community I had always craved, but never quite found while I was living in Atlanta. One of those mainstays was the library. It was one of the first places I wanted to check out once we got settled, knowing that it would be frequented often by me and the kids. I remember navigating my way there the first time, noting the surrounding streets, the fork in the street, and the U-turn it took to get me there. Back then, I didn’t know the library was in the heart of downtown.

Three months later, I found myself there again, checking out a book while I waited for my Target pick-up order to be ready. I browsed the rows of bookshelves, picking out a read, before exiting the library on the opposite end to grab a coffee and some lunch. As I sat, sipped, and nibbled on my sandwich while I read on my Kindle, I couldn’t help but feel immense gratitude and contentment for where the Lord brought us.

Though this move wasn’t something we planned or initially welcomed, this place has come to feel like home. Not just because of the library, but because of the blossoming friendships and community I’ve prayed for for years, the unexpected joy I’ve found in this quiet coastal town, and the slowness my soul unknowingly craved—now granted through small-town living, and the wholeness that is found when you let go wholeheartedly, putting ten toes down – planting yourself – deciding to dig-in and make the most of wherever you are.

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About the Writer:

Janelle King

(she/her), Organizational Psychologist & Certified Coach

Brunswick, GA

Website

Instagram

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Gratitude to

Janelle King

for being the first guest writer to the 2nd cohort of the postcard series. This album is called “The Present’s Offering”. I met Janelle almost 10 years ago back in DC about a year after graduating. We can’t recall exactly where we met at but we hung out a few times after before the fullness of life disconnected us. Fast forward to 2023, it was Substack that reconnected us. Yes, we have the same name but we also have similar interests and values like coaching, centering joy, and God. As I read through her entry it reminded me so much of where I am in life when it comes to feeling at home & heavy on the gratitude for community that I always prayed for. At the end of the year her and the fellow contributors will meet virtually to celebrate the postcards and the joy of writing.

Here’s a throwback of Janelle and I :)

With joy,

Janel