Moving On

A year ago our family of 7 moved out of our 3 bedroom, 1 bath, 1,000 square foot home into my brother in law’s spacious old farm house on 5 acres. We’ve been renting the upstairs of the house while we attempted to save a chunk of cash.

It’s been a good year. There was lots of brother bonding time, lots of mini farm life fun with goats, chickens, turkeys, puppies, and a duck, and lots of zombie watching.

The year wasn’t all fun and zombies though. We had our share of drama. It’s hard sharing living space with another family. My brother in law was very brave to take on the chaos that is our family.

This past week Jason and I drove by a cute little house with a for rent sign in the window. There is a ridiculous shortage of decent rental property in our tiny town so we called right on the spot, met the homeowner within an hour, put down a deposit, and signed a lease the following day.

We are so excited about the new house! We’re excited about moving on.

Moving on can be sad or scary when it’s a move you didn’t choose for yourself, like losing your job, divorce, illness, or the death of a loved one. It can be really hard to do but it’s still necessary. We can choose to stay in the pain but that won’t be good for us and it won’t be good for anyone around us. So here are 3 of my personal goals for moving on.

1. BE PRESENT
Have fun.
Embrace the challenge.

I’m going to accept this sudden move in all it’s chaotic disorder. I’m going to relax. I’m going to do what I can each day to help it go smoothly, but I’m also going to take time to do things that bring me joy, like write this blog post, the 3rd one in 1 week!  And…make sure we have some Fall Break Fun with our kids.

2. BE THANKFUL

This past week a woman who lives in a house like this

told me and my husband that she was embarrassed to tell her clients where she lives because they live in houses like this.

Her housing dilemma helped me realize that the poorest of us spoiled Americans, myself included, can benefit from reality checks every so often so we can remember to be thankful for all we DO have. I’m choosing to be thankful for our little rental house with heat in the winter, cold in the summer, and clean drinking water. For the first time in 15 years, we’re going to have 2 toilets!!! The second potty doesn’t even come with a sink, but who cares?  I’ll be happy anywhere as long as I get to live with these goofballs.

3. GET RID OF THE JUNK
This is an opportunity to get rid of our junk. Even though we got rid of bags and bags of toys, clothes, and kitchen gadgets we never used in our old house, we never fully unpacked here and then we collected even more stuff. We have an opportunity to weed out again, to take what we love and discard the rest.

Besides physical stuff, there’s emotional crap to leave behind as well. My husband and I separated in August of 2012 for 9 months. When we decided to reconcile, we merely coexisted for 1 ½ years. I wrote a couple of posts about it last year when I was exploring my feelings on how to go about reconnecting. This resulted in a “talk” in December about possibly calling it quits for good. At that point we made the decision to recommit. It’s been almost a year of connectedness, but I’ve been holding on to some of the relationship “junk.” I’m making a commitment to let it go and leave it behind. I’m looking forward to a fresh start in our new home where we’ve only ever loved and been committed to each other.

“Don’t look back. You’re not going that way.”

While I’m leaving emotional junk behind, I’m going to leave as much as I can bag up and throw away (which it just occurred to me that we can choose to do this EVERY DAY if we’ll only remember to do so.)

When I leave this house, I’m choosing to see myself as a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, ready to soar. I’m leaving my feelings of insecurity, guilt, and failure in the cocoon. I’m enough. I’m enough every day and so are you! We don’t have to carry old baggage around with us.

That baggage is a story. It may be a story based on actual events but it’s still a story. It may be a story you are telling yourself or it may be a story that someone else has been telling you your whole life about WHO YOU ARE and how you do things, but you can choose to change the story at any point as many times as you want to, EVERY DAY even. You are not stuck! You have the power to write your story and make it beautiful. Don’t give your power away. Don’t let anyone else write your story. If it’s not a happy one, for Pete’s sake, change it. Only you can.

If you want to change your story but don’t know how or where to start, I encourage you to consider What Every Person Can Do.  I’m here to answer questions and support you any way I can!