While Life Is Still Rearranging Itself

Change can be hard and it is uncomfortable. It can be planned and it will still be difficult to go through.

The most recent change in my life was a big one.

My husband and I were told by our landlord that they were selling the house we rented our floor in for nearly 12 years. We had two months to move out.

A flurry of emotions went through me that day from anger to sadness to anticipation. Once that settled, the work began.

A little backstory, my husband and I bought a house in 2020 in East Texas. It’s in the sticks and the nearest HEB is 30 minutes away (along with nearly everything else). We had planned to move sooner than now but there were still things that needed to be done.

We finally gave ourselves a timeline: no matter what, we would move no later than the winter of 2027.

Then, as life always happens, our timeline moved for us.

Our rental was our home for nearly 12 years. My husband and I got married while living there and my boys came home from the hospital to that apartment. It held a lot of memories in those walls.

There was also a lot of stuff.

So I started sorting, purging, and packing. And since this move wasn’t exactly planned, I was doing that while dealing with everything else life had already placed on my plate.

We ultimately had to make a choice: spend a large amount of money moving into another increasingly expensive apartment in New York, or put that money toward getting everything we own to Texas.

We chose Texas.

But moving into our house was hardly that simple.

The house still needs work, so the plan changed again. The kids and I would go stay with my parents while my husband finished his work season and then he’d join us once he could.

Here we are, nearly three months later, with about three months to go.

There have been lots of phone calls, pictures, texts, decisions, second thoughts, more decisions, and plenty of moments where I have wondered what exactly we’re doing.

Maybe that’s the part about change we don’t talk about enough.

Sometimes change is a leap of faith into a new life before you’ve completely left the old one behind. You just start taking the next step. And then the next one.

Eventually, you look around and realize that you’ve made it farther than you thought you would.

The next few months are still uncertain and we don’t know how all of it will look for us. There are still things to figure out, things to finish, and probably a few more unexpected turns waiting somewhere along the way.

I’ve learned through this and previous changes that having a plan doesn’t mean life will follow it.

It just means you have somewhere new to begin.

What change are you moving through right now, and what is one small step you’re taking toward whatever comes next?

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