I had a flash of self-insight the other day during a conversation with my mom. We were talking about my upcoming move to a cheaper apartment, and she said, “You’re going to miss this place, aren’t you?” This with regard to the apartment I’ve lived in with my younger daughter for the past two years.
I said, “Actually, I’m really looking forward to the new place. It’s got a little more space and it’s cheaper. It’s not as ‘fancy,’ but plenty of other things make up for it.”
Then I added, “I’m not like I used to be, all, ‘I have to have THIS house, and I have to live HERE, and my daughters HAVE to get THIS for Christmas, etc.’ I guess I’m more flexible now.”
And it was just after that that I realized how much I have actually changed since my world crashed and burned a couple of years ago. For a long time, I only felt as though I had given up and sacrificed a great deal, and put my daughters through difficulty I didn’t want to have to share with them, and that I had lost my access to the “good life”.
Don’t get me wrong–I’ve never have been what anyone would call rich–always somewhere between “getting by” and “pretty comfortable”–and we haven’t starved since my Big Crash. But the way that my younger daughter and I live now is very different, definitely a step down from any way we’ve lived before. (The older one is married and living overseas with her Marine husband–another huge adjustment!)
And in telling my mom about this upcoming move and how much I am looking forward to it, I finally got it: It’s not a matter of my being willing to accept wherever I am, but one of actually living in this place, this now, and being very happy with it.
The two and a half moves-from-hell we suffered through in 2010 don’t frighten me anymore. Oh, sure, I don’t want to talk about it and give it any energy, but I am eager to move this time, eager for a new adventure that will, in several ways that are obvious to me, be better. Even the move is going to be “good”, with friends pitching in, and very little expense to move, because we are moving less than a mile away! We even have an extra day to finish up without extra rent–by magical happenstance!
I still look forward to being wealthy and successful, and I work energetically (and physically) to bring that into my NOW. I look forward to building a nice comfy house to call my own, and a husband to share it with, but HERE and NOW are GOOD–even when I don’t know how I am going to pay for anything. I have learned to trust that the miracle always comes through and we do manage, by hook or by crook.
And this is one of things that have changed for me since 2010. Now I start thinking, “What else will I change and for what reasons?” I am eager to find out!