I became a Charlottean shortly after I learned how to walk. It was preceded by a two-day drive across the country’s flat middle, which was preceded by my mother dropping an armful of groceries in a Walmart parking lot in Omaha, Nebraska. It was punishingly cold. Plastic bags scudded across the asphalt like arctic tumbleweeds, and my mother looked at my brother’s and my ruddy little faces, thought about her lifetime of North Carolina summers, and knew she had to go back.
Knowing my father, it didn’t take much convincing. I’ve never seen him pass up an opportunity to make my mother happy. He quit his secure job at my grandfather’s investment firm, packed up their adorable house, and left. I picture my mother driving in her usual, too-fast way, exhaling the whole journey south. She, my brother and I stayed at her parents’ house in Fayetteville, North Carolina until the deal on our new Charlotte house closed.
I wonder what that clip of time felt like. My parents couldn’t have known how long my father’s job, which he found impressively quickly, would last. They were entirely unfamiliar with the
city or anyone in it. They didn’t know that Charlotte’s roads seemed to change names every few blocks, and that they would mentally record the complex map with a sense of affection. They didn’t know that in eleven years they would have five children. They didn’t know that, at the army base just fifteen minutes from the Fayetteville house where my mother stayed, their African son would learn how to jump out of airplanes and land in war zones.
And yet they went. My mother needed something desperately, and my father agreed to make the necessary sacrifices. It created symmetry; she, after all, moved to Nebraska for him. It’s fascinating what makes people leap.
There’s a quote that is often labeled as a Zen proverb but is more popularly attributed to American naturalist John Burroughs. It says, “Leap and the net will appear.” I like it, and perhaps even believe it, but soak it in one more layer: Leap, knowing that a net might not appear. 
My parents landed on a comically comfortable net, but that was never guaranteed. They could have moved to Charlotte and not made a single friend, and decided that the school system sucked, and that the neighborhood wasn’t as safe as it seemed. My father’s job may have fallen through, as stock-related jobs often can. These things happen to families all the time, and yes, the likelihood of them happening to my parents was reduced due to their advantage-soaked lives. But still. They could have left Omaha and watched every last thing turn to ash.
The absence of a guarantee is what makes a leap, a leap. Most bold decisions, including most committed relationships, are built around risk. You’re putting energy, time, and other “missed” opportunities into weaving something with this partner, or friend, or new job, or new place, or intentional self-love. You hurdle yourself off a cliff knowing damn well that you could clatter to the rocks, but the possibility of touching the sun is worth it.
Perhaps naïvely, I’m under the impression that nets appear more often than not. Not because most people get lucky in most things, although of course things like luck and privilege play huge factors, but because most people have the ability to weave some sort of merciful solution where there was once empty canyon air. They can find a rebound job, or start saving enough money to do X, or leave a toxic relationship, or put more intention behind a good one, or finally cure their boredom. We’re more resourceful than we give ourselves credit for.
Some would say my parents encountered good fortune because of God. While I believe that God is full of good, I also believe that God won’t do all the legwork for you. My parents consistently strengthened their internal selflessness and the love between them, and made efforts to learn the city and make friends. They leaped with 
the hope that a net would appear, but armed, perhaps subconsciously, with the realization that “appear” might be the wrong word. They leaped with intention and in the spirit of mutual sacrifice.
On days when I know that something needs to change, I picture my mother crying in a Walmart parking lot in Nebraska. I’ve learned that change doesn’t come easily and doesn’t have to end in joy. It takes hope and knots and calloused hands.