I’m back from a couple week blogging break as we’ve moved into our little 1925 Dutch Colonial house in SE Portland and as I reflect on the past month and the past year in general, I realize just how much has changed.  This year brought about a lot of different emotions, lots of highs, lots of lows and lots of in between’s.  2018 has brought a lot of change to me personally and professionally – some changes within my control, and a lot not in my control.  I bought a house and moved to a part of Portland I never saw myself living in (but am loving), have been challenged professionally in relationships with clients and dealing with issues beyond my scope and control, found out my college that I teach at is closing in December and have had a number of personal family issues throughout the year. We also changed up how we traveled this year and I wouldn’t say it was my favorite year of travel either – in short, 2018 has been one of those years that just brought a lot of change.

But, in all the changes, I’ve realized something really important this year – life is all about the ebb and flow, about the seasons of our lives in which some seasons are all about change, some are about exploration, some are about comfort, some are about sadness and some are about tremendous joy.  The important thing is to keep moving forward, realizing that we’re all going through changes, we’re all dealing with things behind the scenes of our beautiful Instagram accounts, we’re all laughing and crying and searching.

Was I the happiest I’ve ever been this year?  No probably not.  Did I feel super inspired this year?  No probably not.  But did I learn a lot of really valuable lessons this year?  Did I have a lot of stressful situations that taught me to be stronger?  Did I have a lot of change that forced me outside my comfort zone?  Oh yea.  Life is always going to throw things your way and in the constant attack of all the things flying our way, that’s when you learn the most.  I’ve never been afraid of change, in fact I welcome it.  But this year, I embraced it and learned every lesson I possibly could from it.  If you are afraid of the changes, if you shy away from them, you get too comfortable and can’t really embrace what might possibly be coming next.

Life isn’t meant to stay the same, you’re not meant to feel the same way your whole lifetime on this planet.  We’re meant to change, to grow.  We’re meant to learn from mistakes and evolve from situations that arise.  We’re meant to push ourselves outside our comfort zone and we’re meant to push ourselves to be the very best versions of ourselves and we can’t do any of that if nothing ever changes.  So the moral of the story?  Embrace the different seasons of your life for what they are.  This season for me has been all about change, about facing things that are hard and learning the valuable lessons to move forward to whatever is ahead.  And as I sit here in my 1925 house looking out as the leaves start to change to jewel toned colors for the Fall, I’m very much looking forward to what is ahead for me, both professionally and personally, knowing that this past year has been setting me up for whatever is next and I couldn’t be more excited!

While scrolling Pinterest a couple weeks ago, an image popped up that said “I love those days when my only decision is: window or aisle?”  And in that moment, I found myself nodding – don’t we all crave those days?  When big decisions don’t exist?  When we’re headed somewhere new, somewhere far away from our routine?  Because the truth is as we get older, life gets complicated.  It gets busy, it gets over-scheduled and life gets… harder.

I just moved, sold our townhouse and bought a house, am in the middle of some major deadlines for work, teaching double the classes I was expecting to this quarter.  And in the midst of it all, are there days when I would rather just be choosing window or aisle versus signing my life away to a new mortgage, unpacking what seems like five million boxes of my belongings or trying to get colleagues to get me the items I need to meet a submittal deadline for a large project… that answer is a solid yes, I would much rather be jumping on a plane to escape everything and just having to choose window or aisle.

But here’s the thing, life isn’t life without the hard stuff.  Being an adult is hard, everyone has challenges, no matter how beautiful their life looks from the outside.  We’ve all got stuff we’re dealing with, stress we’re trying to manage, family issues we’re not publicizing.  Life only gets harder as we get older, that’s just honest.  But, I’ve always believed that without all those hard decisions, without the tedious work that sometimes beats us down, without all the large life decisions we make that bring on so much stress, those moments when we do just get to choose window or aisle, when everything falls in to place, when the decisions we’ve made year after year finally pay off, that is the reason it’s all worth it.

I’ve had a number of people remark to me in the last couple weeks while selling our townhouse and moving, “you guys just sold your townhouse without a backup plan of where you would move next?”  And the answer is, yea, pretty much.  We knew it was time to move on from our townhouse and we definitely had multiple options and ideas in place for what was next, but we genuinely didn’t know at the time which would work out and had no definitive plan of where we’d head next when we sold our townhome in NW Portland.  And while that might seem reckless to some, for me, as Type A as I am (and while I definitely always have a backup plan in mind), I genuinely love the rush of open possibilities.  It might bring stress, because how could it not when I didn’t know where I was going to live next?  But sometimes, life will open up possibilities for you when you least expect it, when you don’t have expectations, when you just open yourself up to being free, to letting life happen.

When we first walked through the house we ended up buying, I had totally resigned myself to having to give up my dream of renovating an old house.  I had no expectations that day we looked at houses with our realtor.  And then, we walked in this little 1925 Dutch Colonial with the original hardwood floors, a gorgeous old built-in in the dining room and a picket fence and I just knew it was right.  Those moments when you open yourself up to what life wants to put in front of you, feel almost like magic when they happen.  When you just know that the choice was made for you.  It’s the same with falling in love or visiting a place that you just spontaneously adore without really knowing why.  Those moments, they are only possible when you can let go of expectations, when you can let go of making the big decisions, because those will come anyways – open yourself up to the possibilities of whatever might come your way and you won’t regret it.

In the end, our situation was really serendipitous with buying and selling homes this time around (it was definitely the opposite when we bought our townhouse and I think Karma tried to throw a bone our way this time) but I really believe that we have enough big decisions in life to make, sometimes, it’s ok to open the door and see where life takes us without a real plan in mind.  So while those easy decisions like window seat or aisle seem pretty amazing on those days when all hell is breaking lose, just remember, take a step back, take a breath and remember that even while it feels like you’re in the trenches, without the long hard work, without the hard choices, without the never ending to do lists, those moments of feeling completely free of burden wouldn’t be worth it.  And when your life seems hopeless, when the stress is pounding down on you and the weight of the world is on your shoulders, try to let it go and let life lead the way.  Try to let the world make the decisions for you and open yourself up to the possibilities in front of you, even if they are different than you thought that you’d want.  Sometimes being totally open to whatever comes your way will bring you more peace than you ever could have found on your own and the magic of the possibilities in front of you will lead the way.

I’m going to take a couple weeks of blogging as we move into our new (to us) house – but I’ll be back at the end of September with all new content!