Maybe I Don't Need A Different Life

I’ve done a lot of moving around. Literally. I’ve moved so many times— sampled different states, different countries even. And there’s something interesting that always happens in the lead-up to the leap. Before every big change, I get so sick of something (usually myself) that it starts to feel like I need an entirely new life. Thrill in a blank slate. To start over, to begin again.

And then as I settle, I start to feel it again. This nagging, yearning. What if? What if this, what if that. If I just had a space like this. If I just lived in a town like that — gosh, things would be so different. I just know I would finally start a garden. And I would finally find a community of likeminded moms. And if I lived around the corner from a farmers market, I could pick up fresh fruits and vegetables for my family and skip those big supermarkets altogether. Or if we just lived on acres and acres of land, we could have a self-sustaining property — we wouldn’t need society’s conveniences, we could just create them ourselves.

I think these are all real pulls and real curiosities that so many of us feel, especially in recent years. There are many of us questioning: is where I am and what I am doing aligned with who I am here to be? Aligned with my soul’s true desires, needs, purpose, highest fulfillment etc. etc.? Am I living how I want to live or am I living inside a version of life that societal pressures have created for me?

As a result, I think it’s natural and normal for our minds to think that big change is the quickest and best way to “solving” these “problems.”

And I think sometimes life does call for a big leap — a big geographical change, a breakup, a shakeup. Sometimes big change is the aligned answer. But as I’ve been sitting with this feeling lately, for me, there’s a deeper curiosity behind all of it. Because I find myself on the harder days, especially the days where I don’t have time or space for myself in the way I’d ideally have, asking: is this really how I want to live my days?

I’m playing this internal tug of war right now. We’ve moved into this beautiful house and we’re planting roots. This is the first time in my life I’ve felt tethered. It’s the first time I am a homeowner. And so I think it’s especially natural and normal, as mom — the energy that guides the home — to feel the weight. The great weight and responsibility of: is this where the tribe is settling? Is this the most optimal setup for us? Is this where I want to be raising my kids? Is this the environment I want my children exposed to?

And I think my own needs and desires (or at least those of my mind) can get in the way of what my heart feels might be more supportive. It’s all a bit intertwined right now in this murky way where I know I don’t have 100% clarity, but I can feel the nagging. And I can’t ignore it, because it’s the thing I hear when I’m falling asleep and sometimes the thing that wakes me up in the wee hours of the morning. Is this where I want to be? Is this how I want to be living?

But it’s going to be a different answer for each of us, and that’s the point. Just because the family down the street is getting out of dodge and moving to a 200-acre farm to start a homestead doesn’t mean that’s the answer for me. This time is challenging us to pause, look within, and ask ourselves: What am I being called into right now? Not Rachel on Instagram. But me, what am I actually yearning for?

Maybe it’s not that I need an entirely different life. Maybe it’s that I’m yearning for a different relationship with the life I already have.

Sometimes I look around at what we’ve created in this home, the stuff that piles up, the packages that arrive at the door, and I’m just like, at what point did I become this maniac hoarder who requires the accumulation of so many things in order to survive? Is this square footage really necessary? Are the daily packages actually essentials? I think this is the time to look at those little things, those little addictions we’re participating in and shoving beneath the rug, and examine the patterns of how we’re engaging with the life we already have.

Maybe this time isn’t about making a huge change, but really holding up a magnifying glass to all the different parts of how we’re showing up. And making micro changes within the current operating system. Maybe it’s not about starting fresh on a farm with a clean slate, but taking some real time to tend to the room I’m sitting in right now. Rearrange the furniture. Purge some stuff. Delete that app from my phone. Hang up that art that’s been sitting in a box.

Ask myself: how do I want to move inside of this space? THIS space. That I’m in right now.

That’s my pattern. I find myself in a new space that I’m so excited to fill, to tend to, to decorate and design, and I get about 80% of the way there and then I just… stop. Something in my body says: wait a second, don’t get too tethered to what’s in front of you, because you might change your mind one day.

And for the first time I can see these two feelings, like a fork in the road. Am I doing maintenance on everything I’ve already created? Or am I just enthralled by the bright, shiny object of big change, big shift — f*ck it! Let’s just shake it all up!

I’m such a shake-it-all-up type of person. I’ve always been this way. My son is the same. I can see it so clearly in little moments, like when we’re heading to the grocery store and he says, can we go to a new store today? Or an outing… Can we go to a new park this time? He’s so like me in that way. We both have this antsiness for things to just be a little different than they were yesterday. So when life starts to feel monotonous or stagnant, my brain immediately goes to the extreme: we have to move, we have to do something big. And NOW.

Maybe it’s just about approaching the day in front of me differently. Maybe it is about going room to room — whether literally or figuratively — and tending to the relationship I have with each room, with each area of my life.

This is such a rich time to let go of the reins a little. To tend to the smaller things, remembering that they are the big things. It’s the little shifts that make me love the life I already have even more. It’s not a new life I’m craving. It’s a deeper relationship with the one I already have. It's the yearning for aliveness that I am here to experience. And yet I hold myself back from it every time I get stuck in the wishing.

The connection and the oneness I’m searching for won’t be found inside of compulsive changing. It will be found inside of me, choosing the path of aliveness over numbing and yearning.

As moms, this feeling is even stronger, more ever-present, because of the demands and what is being asked of us day in and day out. And I’d be lying if I said I don’t sometimes fantasize about getting in the car and just driving into a new life. No belongings in hand, just starting fresh, leaving it all behind. Kids or no kids, depending on the day. Husband or no husband, depending on the day.

But every time I feel that nagging urge to flee lately, I’m challenging myself to sink deeper into what’s right in front of me. To look into my child’s eyes and hold the gaze a little longer than I normally would. To squeeze a little tighter. To ask my husband another question. To spend a little more time lingering in the parking lot while my kids collect rocks. And to question my own impatience. When I’m rushing us, in and out the door, what am I actually running towards?

Some days I’m so committed to rushing that I forget to live my life entirely. It’s not that my home or my neighborhood or my gym is lacking anything. It’s that I’m hovering above every little thing I’m doing, trying to reach some imaginary finish line. When in reality, I’m not actually doing anything urgent. I don’t actually have anything to do. And on those days, I fall asleep listening to my mind tell me a story: if only we had a different life, I would behave differently inside of it. But I know from making the leap many times that all the little things — all the little habits and patterns — follow me wherever I go.

So this time, instead of looking outward for change, why not look inward? At the little details, the relationships, the addictions I have to how I engage with life. Rather than looking at life as a whole, why not wake up with today? Forget today, but this minute. Forget time, but this child in front of me.

Maybe I don’t need a different life. Maybe I just need a different relationship with the one I already have.