This is not unlike our life over the past few years. Or has it been a decade? Ryan and I have been trudging along together, continually feeling the itch for something new, but not knowing what, or how to satisfy the need. We've moved, changed jobs, bought and sold cars, had a(nother) baby*, but while the itch would be temporarily relieved, within a few years it would creep back in, nagging at our brains and setting us on yet another search for our next fix.
(*Now let me explain here, that we have three lovely daughters, and we can't truly say that any of them were conceived out of this itch. They were each brought about by a desire to add another person to our family. We often joke that kids were a distraction from the itch, but it couldn't be further from the truth.)
What, pray, is this itch we are describing? Well, it has taken us quite a few years (14, to be exact) to pinpoint what it is, and we're still digging deeper and exploring it. We once thought we were just people who needed change. Maybe we were in some way "change junkies", loving the thrill and challenge of creating a new life in a new city, or starting over in a new job. Our friends and family started joking about the amount of times we moved, and while we saw their point (and might I say, felt somewhat embarrassed), we still couldn't seem to resist getting that wanderlust, or "changelust" every two years or so. And so we moved, we switched things up, we followed our antsy-pants need for something different. To. No. Avail.
It was about four years ago that we moved into a home in a lovely little city on the sea, surrounded ourselves with good people, a warm and lovely community, and started putting down roots. "We'll be here for a long time," we told ourselves. "Oh yes. This is really it. We have really arrived." And we felt we had. We had started out as a young couple fresh home from a two-year stint in Japan, living in a basement suite, renting. Then we moved into another suite. Then we moved "up", and purchased our first home - a lovely, three bedroom townhouse. Then we got pregnant, and thought, "this lovely three-bedroom townhouse won't possibly be big enough for a growing family like ours!" and so we sold it and bought a big house. It was a lovely, older house with 2700 square feet to spread out in. Five months later, we were in the hole and only sinking further and so we moved, with our baby, back to a townhouse. Then, after two years (hmmm, that itch!), decided it was time to move back into a house, and here we find ourselves, in this lovely little city on the sea. We have a house with a yard, two cars, nice neighbours, and good friends all around. What more could we ask for?
Then, after about a year and a half of living here....wait for it....WE GOT THE ITCH. It started slow, as it always did, and grew from there. But this time, we had a different reaction. First of all, we looked at our life as it stood. There was nothing that needed "improving". Our home was wonderful. Our jobs were wonderful. Our family was wonderful. Our cars were wonderful. There was no big thing that seemed changeable. Every change felt wrong. And so we started asking a different question.
"Why do we keep getting this itch? Why, when things are so good, do they not feel right? Why can't we remain content? Is there something deeper going on? Is there a direction that we are being urged in that we have continued to miss?"
So, we decided to do something radical. Something so wild and unusual that it nearly knocked us off our feet. We decided to NOT DO ANYTHING. Yep. We told each other that we would stay right where we were.
We also agreed that we would try and figure out why we kept getting this itch.
And thus began our new journey.
There was, along with this itch, a growing desire in both of us to do life a little differently, a little more thoughtfully. We were being pulled in directions based on convictions we were both having. Living with less "stuff", living in a more earth-friendly way, giving more of ourselves to people around us, living more generously, spending more time together as a family, building community around us - these were some of the things stirring in our brains. Once we started verbalizing them, it became more and more clear that we had something else on the back burner beyond just an addiction to change. We had some good stuff brewing, and we decided to pursue those things.
We sat down one day with a pen and paper. We were going to decide and write down our "family values" - the things that were most important to us in how we lived our lives. They were as follows:
God's presence and leading in our lives
We are people of faith, and this was the top priority, and the thing that we feel binds them all together.
Living Intentionally
Speaking to all of the things mentioned above, this is our desire to live life with meaning, and not just pass through it in mediocrity. We want to analyze, criticize, and be deliberate about how we do life.
Family Time
We love being together, and so the more of this that we can have, the better!
Living Simply
This speaks to our desire to do with less "stuff". The more we accumulate, the more time we take to maintain the "stuff", and the less time we have for each other, our relationships, and things we want to dedicate time to. Not to mention, so much stuff causes a lot of stress!!
Creating Community
In our neighbourhood, in our community, with everyone and anyone we are in contact with, there is the potential for beauty in relationship. We love that we have gotten to know our local supermarket checkout guy, and know a bit about his life. He knows all our names and says hi as soon as he sees us. It's these small things that make our life rich.
Adventure
Ryan and I are adventurers at heart. We love travel, seeing other places, and just being on the move. We have crafted our summers over the past number of years to include an end-of-summer road trip, which is one of our richest family memories each year. (And this year, is the source of that stink we keep smelling in the van....!)
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So, we wrote these things down. The next step was to compare these values with our life as it was at the time. We needed to hold up our life under the magnifying glass, and what didn't work with our values would have to be changed!
Things we came out with? Well, I'll sum it up as it stands today.
We want less stuff, and more time, more energy, more love and relationship, more freedom, more financial freedom, and more adventure! Simple, right?
Well, kinda. Yeah.
There have been a few books read. Some have been particularly meaningful.
Simplicity Parenting, by Kim John Payne
AMillion Miles in a Thousand Years, by Donald Miller
Love Does, by Bob Goff
See You in a Hundred Years, by Logan Ward
The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin
You Can Buy Happiness (and it's cheap), by Tammy Strobel
(Judging by these covers, you'd think we were self-help junkies, but they are all VERY good books, and have really shaped our thinking over these years. Check them out! Really!)
So where does this leave us then? Well, we are about to foray into a most counter-culture world. It's a world in which people often either draw blank or grow silent. It's the world of LESS.
We are taking some serious steps towards downsizing. Yes, we have three small daughters who are only getting bigger! Yes, we have "arrived" at suburbian utopia (a house with a yard and two cars...)! Yes, we may sound crazy, but we're DOWNSIZING!
What will this do for us? How will this help us to see our values reflected? Well, here is how.
We hope...
- that by having less stuff, we will have less to clean up, maintain, and worry about
- that by having less space, we will be forced to be closer to each other (as we discover every summer on our road trip!)
- that by having a smaller home, we will have a smaller mortgage, freeing us up financially
- that by having less material stuff, we will teach our daughters that "things" are not what is important in life, but that time together, relationships, and experiences are what makes a good life.
- that by living differently, we will inspire others to do the same!
And so here I am at the end of the explanation of the beginning of our adventure. Our hope, our plan, is to document this journey here on this blog. We want to share it with you, because frankly, WE ARE SO EXCITED ABOUT IT. We want to knock your pants off! We want to inspire you to do life in a way that is meaningful to YOU! We want to live life to the fullest, in the best possible way that we can!
So we welcome you here. Track along with us as we walk into this unknown land, trip and fall along the way, but always pick ourselves up again and keep on trudging. Heck, maybe some of you will want to come along!
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