The winds of change are blowing across southern Saskatchewan and knocking all the dehydrated leaves off our trees. Because it has been so dry, they barely had a chance to change colour and they're tumbling across my yard and over the horizon. Fall is all but here, and today I felt the first hints of winter: single digit temperatures and an icy wind. AND IT IS STILL TECHNICALLY SUMMER. But this will be my last prairie fall, or Second Season of the Wind, so I'll take it.
Our family is relocating.
It's a big change for us: hopping two provinces westward, embracing a different climate (huzzah!), creating new routines, forming new community and shifting our lifestyle. It's exciting and it fell into place after almost four years of tentative dreaming (after each summer vacation: wouldn't it be nice to stay here forever?), dedicated planning (husband working the network to get a new job; purging the house; number-crunching; letting go of our dream farm-future) and starry and planetary alignment (the job offer came on the eclipse!).
But I'm living in limboland right now, and will be for the foreseeable future.
My husband left yesterday to relocate to our new life.
I get to stay here in our "old" life, job, house and routines until our home/farm sells.
Then we'll all be reunited on a dreamy island off the west coast of Canada.
Limboland is a weird place. I'm super duper excited about what's next -- after all, I'm a what's next kind of person (great starter, not such a strong finisher, because LOOK OVER THERE AT THAT NEW THING! I want to go there!), but I have to contain my excitement and not live too far into future, because the current/old life could continue for months, or maybe a year a more. And I will run out of enthusiasm/energy/optimism mid-way.
So, I'm trying to keep smaller milestones in sight: Get the house listed. Get the man-friend packed up and off on his travels. Get the child settled into another school year. Get the projects done at work. Coach the amazing clients. Make the bed. Empty the dishwasher. Walk the dog. Sell the stuff. Sell the house. And still keep the dream alive.
It's interesting to notice how I'm NOT COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT, ahem, how I'm embracing the un-planned-ness of my future -- once the house sells and I quit my full-time gig here, I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S NEXT. There is no plan, other than a vague idea of ramping up my coaching practice and then... who knows? There is something totally scary AND freeing in the not knowing.
I'm revelling in the idea of being a full-er-time coach, being able to walk my kiddo to and from school and kung fu and go kayaking some morning JUST BECAUSE I WANT TO. Maybe I'll host art-based coaching workshops from our new garage-turned-studio space...and teach meditation classes at the local rec centre....and write those other books I've been meaning to write.
Ditching the 8-5 office job seems a critical next and permanent step.
I'm especially looking forward to embracing a more minimal lifestyle. Being a single-car family, living in a smaller home with a smaller (non-farm) yard, enjoying more experiences and time with each other and less stuff. It means I won't need to be tied to that 8-5 grind because we won't be reliant on it. More freedom.
I'm torn between starting new things here and now, and waiting until I've moved. So, I've tested out a few things to see if they shift the universe (i.e., send a buyer for our place), including:
- Getting new photos with the fabulously talented Michael Bell. The sprucing up of this site will follow soon.
- Signing up for a kung fu class (my kid is attending one, and there's an adult class at the same time, so there really didn't seem to be a reason NOT to...)
- Collaborating to co-lead a women's retreat next spring in a forest near Vancouver (!!!)
- Buying an ungodly amount of delicious fancy-pants cheese from my pal Aleana at Takeaway Gourmet
- Committing to a new workout routine (Did you see the note about the cheese? Ugh.)
I'll keep you posted on the imminent move, and what it's like in between now and then, and then some.
In love and light,
Jilly