Dear friends,
As some of you may know, John and Maggie and I have purchased a 44-acre farm in Wayne Maine!! You may recall us talking about moving to San Francisco for a travel assignment, or taking a year and travelling the country before settling down in a yurt somewhere, or building a tiny home and wandering about in that for a few years....none of that happened. But what DID happen is we moved to Maine to do a travel assignment and started looking at a few places to get some vision about our future. A few short viewings into our browsing we happened on this incredible home, barns and pastures in tow, along with 40 wooded acres, and all of a sudden all of our imaginings disappeared and we both knew that this place had to be our future. So here I sit, on our bed (and by bed I mean mattress on the floor, because life), trying to take in all that has and has not happened in the last few months.
Let me first start by saying that leaving Colorado was (and continues to be) the hardest move I have ever made. If any of those reading this are some of my Colorado compadres, know that you have made a deep and everlasting mark on who I am and you continue to inspire me every day to be a better me. Life there had settled into an easy and fulfilling mix of familiar faces/places, and new and exciting adventures. I had a group of friends and coworkers there that many people look for their whole lives. Our lives there were good, and if land weren't so damn expensive maybe we'd still be there ;) Just kidding, Maine was always the destination, but that part of the journey was my favorite to date.
So we arrive in Maine...in November, like geniuses. For those of you who don't know, it was just shy of a month that the temperature did not rise above 5 degrees. So there we were, in our 900 sq ft rental with a baby that we couldn't take outside and dogs that didn't want to go outside. So we went to the library and the one nearby coffee shop as many times as reasonable people can repeat the same activities over and over....and target, lets be real, there's always target. Not surprisingly we both progressed into a downward spiral of boredom/loneliness/captive animal rage fairly quickly. So when it came time to close on our new house and start moving stuff out of the storage unit, we were ecstatic to say the least. John was on cloud nine, finally feeling like he could take a deep breath, like he had projects to work on and productive things to think about and visions to vision. He was putting his hands and his mind to work again and embracing all that the farm had to offer.
Me? I was taking deep breaths too, but they were the kind that you have to talk yourself through, the kind that still had a quiver of panic at their base. "Wow I can't believe we get to call this place home, (*I am taking a deep breath in now, isn't that nice*), look at the sky so full of stars and the air is so clean and fresh, (*And now I'm breathing out, see me relaxing? So relaxed*), I can't wait to build a life and memories here, and what if I never make a friend, and I'm definitely never going to have a job that is intellectually stimulating again, and where oh where will I go to feel like I'm a part of something (*hyperventilating now*), but oh man those stars are pretty (*oh right, I'm relaxed and peaceful, I forgot)." That kind of deep breath. The travel assignment that I'm working at now asks me to function at a fraction of what I was functioning at in Colorado, and offers me a fraction of the challenge, thus a fraction of the intellectual achievement, thus a fraction of the enjoyment. I just had this voice in the back of my head saying 'what are you going to do? this is never going to be enough' on loop like some broken robot that was taunting me. Meanwhile the weather has changed from 5 degrees to 34 degrees and raining, which is really helpful for one's mental state....
So I continued on, trying to really believe that everything would be fine and work itself out. There was some point at which I decided I was wrong and that nothing would be ok and that I had actively chosen to step away from everything that makes me feel strong and empowered and grounded and motivated and that those things could never exist in tandem with a life on the farm. True panic. Of course as always, the universe guides you in a new direction and if you're lucky you might just notice and follow its lead. So as fate would have it I was required to take a course in Boston for my travel assignment, so I decided I would take the opportunity to see some girlfriends. I stayed with my friend Erin who has a little girl a couple months younger than Maggie, went out to dinner with her and her friends, I dropped in on my friend Kate (which as an aside I really think that we as a society need to bring back the practice of "dropping in") and we had a lovely chat and walk, and I reconnected with one of my favorite people from nursing school and we made and ate delicious food after which we sat on the floor of her bathroom and hung out with her 4 year old while she took a bath. I felt an energy soaking in under my skin, the kind of energy that rubs off on you when you are surrounded by people that are both meeting their full potential and enjoying life. I don't know why it always comes as a surprise to me that a little time with some girlfriends truly can be the answer. I left the weekend feeling redirected and motivated to carve out a life for myself that somehow combined the two worlds that I love so much, the quiet still of the country, and the moving, thinking buzz of the city. Serendipitously, I also happened to get a foot in the door at a Boston hospital while I was down there, and suddenly, working per diem a few shifts per month at a place that would keep my mind sharp and my heart happy didn't seem like an impossibility at all.
So here I sit, still on my mattress on the floor, for the first time in a long time, actually taking a deep breath, with no robot voice at its center. Thinking about the ups and downs of transition, and how the downs somehow seem so much more powerful, able to manipulate you into thinking there will never be another up. When you are up it seems so obvious and clear that there will come a hard time again in the future, but the downs strip you of that clarity and consume you, convincing you that this rabbit hole IS the clarity. I am fooled every time.
Yesterday I was determined to get to this space of peace, so battled my toddler into her snow suit and demanded we go outside to enjoy the property and get to know our new home. I shoved her mittens on despite her sorrowful pouts and whines, I scoured the house for a leash-like object since I couldn't find the dog leashes and Bailey has a propensity for chasing deer...I finally found the shoulder strap of a duffel bag and clipped it to her collar, grabbed the kid in one arm and the dogs in the other, shoved my snowshoes on the wrong feet, grabbed the taboggan sled and put Maggie in it (still whining). There, now we were having fun, dammit. We got approximately 20 feet into the field before I realized that allowing my kid to careen down an icy hill on a sled with me on snow shoes with a dog on a leash was probably less than safe and certainly less than fun. So we went back inside where my anxiety kindly greeted me at the door and welcomed be back into my new life.
Today, we had a dance party with the dish rags in the kitchen, slid across the floors on our knees, ate a delicious dinner and sat cross legged on the floor while Maggie fetched book after book that she wanted me to read to her while sitting in my lap. After putting her down to sleep I came downstairs to the smell of cedar and realized that my wonderful husband had filled up our new jacuzzi tub for me, lit candles in the bathroom, poured me a glass of wine, and left me to take a bath to some Iron & Wine.
Sometimes in transition everything is all wrong. And other times, everything is exactly right. Learning to use the moments of panic and doubt as chances to grow and overcome and light a fire...that's the good stuff, that's how you find your feet again.
