Change

Recently, a light came on. In my head, in my heart, I'm not sure which. Probably both. I realised something about myself. I saw it like I was outside, looking in. Does that ever happen to you?

Since moving I have felt happier than I have in a long time. I feel lighter. Content. Calm. Don't get me wrong, it hasn't been without it's, shall we say, challenges. But overall, I feel different here. In a good way.

And I couldn't work out why. It's been bugging me, actually. Why haven't I been missing the places and people we said goodbye to more than I am? Why has the thing that I have been fearing for so very long, actually felt quite....good? It wasn't just that it wasn't as bad as I expected, it was more.

Out of the blue, as these things tend to do, it came to me. I realised that for the past year, I have been forcefully, with my whole body and heart, resisting. Nearly every thought that I had about this massive change that was to come, was negative. It was tiring me out. Draining me. Clouding every judgment I was making about everything. About the time I still had there, and the things we would plan for here. Colouring everything a shade of grey that was hard to shake off.

But the thing is,  I didn't know it at the time. Yes I was sad, but actually trying to push the notion of change out of the way completely?  No way! I'm open minded! I understand that everything changes! Well, it turns out that I wasn't being as open as I thought.

When we finally got here, it was almost like being set free. Free of that little cage of resistance I had locked myself in. Those thoughts of 'I don't want to, you can't make me', were no longer relevant. I no longer needed to think like that. Those thoughts were replaced with mostly silence. With an openness to this new place and what we might find. Letting go and quietly embracing the here and now. 

Just being.

Lesson learnt universe. Next time change is a-coming and I'm not being as open as I should, I'll check myself (*before I wreck myself)

*Oh yes I did just drop an Ice T lyric on y'all.

Photo by me, here.

Moving

Just over a month ago, we moved house. Moved city. Moved our lives from there to here.

Just over a month ago, there was a very long day. We moved in two stages due to the distance, so Friday was a full on day of packing and sorting and cleaning and keeping the toddler out of trouble. We woke up early and tried to prepare ourselves for leaving. It came upon us all of a sudden. You know those days that are always there, hovering in the distance, and then BAM, here there are and away you go?

That's how the whole day was. On a practical level, it felt like a hardcore move. We were very lucky that as it's a move due to job, M's company paid for a removal firm to pack and move our shit. Of which it transpires, the three of us have a LOT of. We thought having people who would pack it all up would make it much easier, which to an extent it did. But we forgot to factor in S. Guys, moving with a toddler? It 'aint easy. He was an angel all day, but still. There is still a small person ready to jump into anything and everything, just wanting to talk to the removal men, trying to help and generally being a little tornado of excitement. Kid loves people. And moving house it seems!

People were coming and going all day long. Stuff was everywhere. An insane amount of chaos before at 6pm, it was just us. Just the three of us in our empty house as the sun was setting outside. We moved into that house just the three of us too - I was 6 months pregnant.

We wandered around and all I could think of was the morning, two years previously when I went into labour. I have the strongest memory of being in the living room, about 3am, a pregnant ball of excitement and contractions, whilst M was in the kitchen making sandwiches and us giggling hysterically. One of my favourite memories. And we filled that house with many like them.

By the end of the day though, we felt done. Ready to leave the house, to say goodbye. Seeing it empty, I felt pretty much the same. No sadness, just happy nostalgia. We had outgrown that house, and despite loving it dearly, it really felt time for the next chapter. We stood outside and took one final photograph. 'This was your first home Sachin'.

We traipsed across London with bags and baby, and got the train to our new city. We were both exhausted, physically and mentally. Sachin was raring to go. He entertained a packed train of commuters for almost 3 hours, and took our minds off everything, except that moment. M and I spent a lot of time just smiling at each other. Reassuring, comforting, excited and tired together.

At about 11pm, we loaded ourselves on to the tram, ready to make our way to the hotel we were staying in (our new house wasn't ready) until the following morning. That's when it hit me. Full in the chest, a sudden wave of emotion, and tears in my eyes. Whenever we'd been here before, it was always fleeting. Running around the city for a few days, hunting houses, barely having enough time to take it all in. Imagining living here, but knowing that once we were exhausted from it all, we'd still be going back to London, going home.

This time, there would be no going back to London. No going back to that home. A new home to make, and new nest to build. Exciting, scary, and completely overwhelming all at once.


{photo credit - http://blog.canterandcave.com/2011/04/shanghai-street-life/totems7/}

Plans, and the funny things that happen to them

There are times in life when things don't go according to your master plan. Something happens and you realise that actually, you can't control everything. You can set things in motion, move in one direction, and then, BOOM, something else happens and off you go, a different route is taken.

We never really had a plan that was set in stone, but we had map that we plotted out early in our relationship. M and I met here, in London. I had just moved to the city, knowing that it was a place I wanted to live from an early age. I was 20 and wasn't looking forward to where I wanted to be in 5, 10 years time. I just knew that this is where I wanted to be now. M and I moved intogether 6 months later. We made London ours.

During those early days, he took me to his favourite place. His seaside town that had been home to him during his uni days, a placed he loved and wanted to share with me. Well, I loved it too. It felt like home. And so, another plot on our map was born.

'One day, when we buy a house and have babies, we'll do it here, beside the sea'

And that's how it was. We planned our journey back to the seaside. We got engaged a year after moving in together. We thought about getting married in the town by the sea. We didn't live there yet though, so maybe not. But the chatter of when we would move got more serious. On weekend visits to the seaside, we would conspire. We would look in estate agent windows. We thought seriously about how the commute to London would work out with M's shift work, and whether I could find work there.

Then the BOOM happened. We found out that M's job was set to be relocated. Not to our place by the sea, but around 266 miles north. This was NOT our plan. M and I both work for the same company. His department was moving, mine was not. It was complicated. But at the same time, this was all due to happen a few years down the line.

'It will probably never happen'
'Another job will come up, and we won't have to go'
'We'll definitely win the lottery before that move comes around'

We told ourselves these things over and over, and got distracted in the meantime by the wonderful wedding and building our marriage and having a baby. Friends would ask us 'When's the big move?' and we would frown and pout and push the question aside. Denial is a wonderful thing.

Then in January this year, it hit us. It is happening. Another job is very unlikely to come up. We have not won the lottery. Our plan has changed and not at our request.

Getting used to something you never envisioned is probably the hardest thing of all. We never thought of living in the city we will soon call home. In fact, we'd never even been there. A few weeks ago, we had our second visit, to scope out areas we might want to live. It's a cool city. There is countryside on the doorstep. There are lovely areas we could call home. We have a few, great friends who will make us feel like we belong. But on the day we left, wandering in the rain, I felt homesick and took solace in my husband.

'What if it doesn't feel like home?'
'It will. Because I will be here, and you will be here, and that is what home is. Wherever we are'.

My husband says all the right things.

It's so easy to look at what we are losing. But in actual fact, there is a lot that we could gain. The move holds opportunity. Big, shiny chances to chase dreams and make changes that wouldn't be possible in the big money sucking capital of London. The chance to explore a new place, meet new people, have new experiences. A new place to add to our map.

And whilst our planned journey has changed, maybe the destination will always be the same.

Photograph via Flickr