Our crazy move to a smaller, crappier house

Old House, New House. 

So I moved. It's been about a month and it has not been that awesome of a month. I have really dragged my feet (drug my feet?) about writing this post because what I have to say is rambling and weird and doesn't make a lot of sense. So I'll just start and you can see if you care to read to the end.

Jay and I get antsy. I don't know if it's because we grew up with some chaos in our lives or what, but we can only go about two years before the "let's do something different" monster starts to rear its head. We've moved, changed jobs, left the country, had babies, quit careers, and gone to grad school. Because the same is boring and we, like I said, get antsy. It feels like a physical weight that might suffocate me if I don't find some new mountain to climb fast.

Since our youngest turned two last summer it was about time for something else before we found ourselves with yet another kid. We wanted something harder and more challenging--I think it makes us feel alive. I looked into returning to teaching, but that didn't work out (and if I get up the courage to bare my soul I will write about that soon) and so we started pondering what we wanted to do differently. The idea really became "if we don't have a known path to take, what unknown path could we blaze together?"

Thus began some months of prayer and discussion and dreaming that led us down ideas of international travel or living, selling everything and roaming around for a year, and of homeschooling our kids during our travels. It was all crazy and expansive and incredibly exciting. But we had to make some decisions--where are we going, what are we doing, and are we going to do anything at all?

As we prayed we felt God calling us to live more closely, more freely, and more simply. Jay and I had no idea what that meant in any practical way. We began to compare what we were spending our time and money on to those goals of "closer, freer, simpler" and one of the things that we realized was that we had a big house with a lot of stuff in it and not all that much time together. So our first step became to sell our house and get rid of some of our stuff.

And we did sell the house in about 3 days and then we had to find somewhere to go and it has all been totally whirlwind and chaotic. Which I kind of like, but it also freaks me out. I am complex.

I learned how to sell furniture on Craig's List and that Goodwill eventually gets tired of seeing you. I learned about proper house framing technique (apparently our former house had a leaning chimney--who knew?). I learned that most smaller construction of the past 20 years doesn't come with much of a yard.

And then we packed up all the stuff we had left and moved our four kids into an older house that is about a thousand square feet smaller than our last one.

We are certainly, objectively, closer. There isn't all that much room. We have clearly simplified our possessions, but I still have boxes of toys that are sitting in the garage. Which, by the way, might be too short for the minivan. Freer? Well, we have a great back yard where the children roam and play more freely than they did. And this house cost us less than our old one so our finances are freer for our dreams of travel.

We also used the disruption of moving to experiment with a new school for our kids. They go to classes twice a week for instruction and tests and then do their practice, homework, and projects at home the other three days. Again, definitely closer and freer--not sure about simpler, but we're new to this. We are planning on using the more flexible schedule to achieve our first travel goal of visiting all 50 states as a family (which I will also write about soon).

But even though I am glad to be on this journey, and would absolutely choose it again, it has been hard. The kitchen cabinets are 40 years old and you can tell every time you open a drawer. My bathroom is tiny and I don't know where to put my contacts. The laundry room is in the garage and it is cold--except in August when I may die of heat stroke in there. The house still smells like old people somehow. And although our mortgage is less it feels like we are hemorrhaging cash paying for things like door knobs (there were 4 different kinds of knobs on 12 different doors and I could not handle it) and the benefits of insulation.

It's kind of hard to explain how we got here, but it involved a lot of deeply earnest prayer and fasting and a complete letting go of this crazy adventure.

Because that's what this whole life is; one bizarre and overwhelming adventure where we are called to do good and glorify God.

Oh, and I do love adventure. Adventure is why we randomly moved to another state once upon a decade ago. It is why we wandered around Europe one summer. It is how we wound up with four kids. It is what we want our children to see their lives as instead of as something to be slogged through complaining about politicians and how busy we all are.

I have had moments and even entire days when I've said, "Lord, is this the dumbest decision we've ever made?" (Side note, the actual dumbest decision we've ever made is a toss up between attending a time share sales pitch only to discover we were too young to claim the free TV prize and purchasing a Toyota 4Runner that was possessed and randomly locked and unlocked its own doors.)

I have been confronted with my own arrogance and materialism when I realized I care what other people think of my new house. I feel so much pressure to have something special or Instagram worthy to show off before I have people over. I hate it when I have to admit I am shallow.

I don't think it's the dumbest decision we've ever made, but it is scary and stretching and growing and that is always at least a little painful.

So I moved. To a smaller house in the hopes of living a bigger life. 

Best Mom Tip #183: Embrace this moment

Hey, look, I have a blog! I clearly have not written in a while, largely due to lots of children, a messy house, and nothing terribly funny to say. And, honestly, today is no different. What I have to say today isn't particularly entertaining, but it is personal and relevant to me and I thought it might be to someone else as well.

I had a revelation the other day about myself and my own insecurities as a woman, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend and a mother.

I realized that my feelings of inadequacy and personal failure are an insult to the blessings and gifts of this moment in my life. My comparisons to other (and in my mind, more successful) women belittle the joy and peace that I experience daily. My dissatisfaction and need to justify my life choices to an unnamed, unidentified outside audience are an insult to the principles that guided my decisions in the first place.

It was quite the thought process for a Friday morning.

See, I was a teacher and I loved my job. Through a series of furloughs, changes to family childcare leave policy, and frozen salaries my school district made it difficult for me to retain my job and have another baby (which was unfortunate because 4 years ago I was pregnant with two preschoolers and had to make some tough decisions.)

It is hard to explain to people who have never felt as I did, but I really wanted another child-I didn't feel like our family was complete and I love the chaos of children. I don't actually like babies, which tends to surprise people, but I do love kids. I felt like there was a hole in our family and so Jay and I decided to have our third child.

But then I had to decide what to do with my career. As I said, I loved my job. I was good at it. It gave me great stories at parties. It was fulfilling and entertaining. I felt useful and productive and of value. It certainly wasn't all fun, but it was interesting. But that year the kids and I got the swine flu and it was scary and stressful getting coverage for my classes and making lesson plans for substitutes while taking a toddler to get chest x-rays and standing outside the room while he screamed because I was pregnant and couldn't be near the radiation. I worried about those kinds of moments if I added yet another kid.

For months I struggled with what I should do about my career. Our district had eliminated part time positions so my choices were pretty straightforward-full time work or no work. They both scared me. I was worried about parenting three kids effectively. I was worried about my students suffering if I returned to work after the summer with 3 kids, one of whom was 6 weeks old. I was worried about being a good wife and friend and daughter and sister if I had all of these other responsibilities pulling at me.

So I prayed. To those of you who don't share my faith, that may sound silly or even pointless. For those of you who do, you probably wonder why I didn't start praying months earlier. I don't know why it took me a while to remember to ask God for direction, but it probably had to do with all the conflicting thoughts swirling around in my head as I tried to keep my plates spinning in my daily life. What I began to hear, after many nights asking for direction, was God calling me to stay home with my children for a while.

I hesitate to share that last sentiment because it is such a loaded topic. In no way do I think that God wants all moms of small children to quit their jobs. Nor do I think every family needs a person in the home at all times. What I do think is that God had things to teach me that I was unable to hear when my head was full of Comparative Essays, valuable multiple choice responses, and AP Exam dates.

I had put too much of my worth into what I did for a living. I valued too much the praise and encouragement I received as a teacher. I, for the first time in my life, was left alone with my thoughts with no way to escape hard questions about my purpose, my impact on the world around me, and my meaning in this life.

Over the last three and a half years I have learned to be far more patient with my children than I ever thought I could be. I have had to constantly reevaluate my priorities and, honestly, I have spent a lot of time failing at being a stay-at-home mom. That failure has taught me a lot about myself.

I have struggled with a sense of inadequacy. What are my college degrees for if all I do is change diapers?

I have struggled with how I am viewed by the world. Just because I have 4 kids and stay home does not mean I am uncertain about how birth control works, but thank you for asking.

I have struggled with my sense of self and appearance. It is hard to feel beautiful when you wear primarily work out clothes day in and day out. Unless you're a really hot fitness instructor, I guess, but I'm not so that doesn't really apply.

I have struggled with a sense of insignificance. Where is my big mark on the world if I only see 5 other people a day?

And now on to the revelation part.

If God Almighty called me to this moment in my life, it is disobedient and disrespectful to believe it is "less than" simply because my culture tells me I should be great at all things to all people at all times. 

I will not be winning any awards any time soon, but I have grown as a person and shepherded 4 little lives into being with more peace than I could have used while I taught. And I have spent hours on the phone with my sister-in-law while her husband was deployed overseas talking about kids and parents and clothing-options-after-babies that I would never have experienced if I had been in the classroom all day. I have had conversations with my mom that I would not have had without the time to wander toward meaningful discussion during a phone call. I have distracted my friend Cheryl from working in the middle of the day and kept up with the details of a friend I might not have if we were both working and raising babies at the same time. OK, I spend a lot of time on the phone, apparently, probably because I am starved for adult conversation.

The point is, I am at peace with my choices. I don't know what happens next. Do I return to the classroom as my children are getting a little older? Do I return to school and create a different career path for myself? Do I stay in this pattern for a few more years? I truly don't know the answer right now. But I pray that I will remember that if I follow what God would have me do, I need not worry about my purpose.

I will be living it.