One Year Later...

            

It's hard to believe that it has already been a whole year since we left South Florida and moved into our St. Augustine home. Reflecting on the day we left, I can still feel the rush of emotions I experienced in that moment.  Anxiety, sadness, anticipation...but ultimately grief.  While every one of our moves have been difficult in their own way (and there have been many of them) this one hit just a little differently than the others.  I believe that there are some seasons in life that when you look back on them, you just feel joy.  Not that it wasn't without its struggles, but it was a season that I felt an overall sense of peace within my soul. And the feeling of grief and memories of peace are what I struggled to overcome most in this last year.  

For the most part, I went into autopilot once we arrived in our new home. Unpack, organize, decorate, establish doctors and dentists and go-to grocery stores and restaurants.  I signed the kids up for camp and I put myself out there on Facebook to meet new people.  I met the neighbors and exchanged numbers and showed up for all the community events.  But despite doing "all the things", I struggled to settle.  I felt myself slipping into a negative space that felt familiar to another dark season of my life: post-partum depression. 

I began to panic at the recognition of those similar feelings rising up and threw myself back into therapy, started focusing on self-care and began to reach out to new friends to find support. I won't say it didn't help, because it did. Little by little. But I still felt it lingering underneath.  An uncontrollable sense of discord had settled in myself that I couldn't pinpoint.  My moods became erratic and eruptive, I felt like someone else was steering the ship.  (Enter: hormone dysregulation. Thanks stress)

Meanwhile, I was still desperately sad at the loss of the peace I had found in South Florida. I became convinced that I didn't belong here in our new home, that somehow the place was wrong, despite the fact that everyone else in the family was thriving.  I couldn't help comparing everything wrong with this place to everything right about our previous home. Heaviness weighed on my soul. 

I've always told myself it takes eight months to settle into a new home, to start having a community and to find things about it that I enjoy and feel comfortable.  Having moved so many times before, it was always the eighth month that things started to fall into place. So I anxiously awaited that magic mark of time, just pushing through in any way I could, while still doing "all the things".  It was exhausting.  Not just for me, but for my family too.  They could sense my unease and worried about me, but also became anxious because of me. 

The eighth month came in February.  At that point, I had decided it was time for me to go back to work.  I had been casually applying for jobs since the holidays ended, and was surprised when one popped up after sending a random email to a generic info inbox.  I interviewed and started to feel a tiny fire ignite inside me.  The job seemed perfect.  They were willing to give me a flexible, part-time schedule, it wasn't too far from home, it utilized skills I went to school to obtain, and it was centered in community-based support, which was important to me.  I thought, this is it! The eight month, right on target! I eagerly took the job and began to feel some personal strength welling up.  

It felt right for a short time.  Small red flags were popping up occasionally, but I brushed them aside, telling myself that they weren't deal breakers.  I had the schedule, the flexibility, and the job type I wanted. What more could I ask for?  Well.  Turns out, even things that seem perfect on the outside can feel wrong on the inside.  In the short period of time I was there, I felt my confidence shift. I began questioning myself and wondered why things felt off.  I couldn't put my finger on it, but something wasn't working.  And again, my family noticed. Instead of being excited and coming home energized, I felt defeated and drained.  Ultimately, it wasn't the right environment for me. I struggled to give up what seemed like the "perfect" job, but after being there just three months, I quit.  Back to square one. 

In those last couple of weeks while I was still working, and had made the decision to quit, a few things suddenly became very clear to me: I didn't want to work in a traditional type of environment.  I wanted flexibility to be with my family whenever they needed me. I had goals and projects that I put aside to go back to work, that were calling my name.  A shift was happening inside me, one I didn't know where it was pulling me, but I began to listen.  And then one day, my sweet little girl asked me a question that has changed my course entirely: "Mommy, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

It took me a minute to think about it, I'm not sure why it wasn't more obvious. Finally, I told her that I wanted to be an interior designer or a writer for a magazine. She laughed at me and said, "Mommy, you already do those things!" And she was right. I have been designing homes and spaces my whole life, without even thinking about it.  I have been writing for years on my blog, freelancing, writing on social media, and have been quietly working on a novel for the past four years.  

I'm not sure why it was this moment that it finally clicked into place, but I finally felt like I knew my path forward. 

You see, the feelings I've had over the last year stemmed from this deep uncertainty about who I was meant to be.  I questioned my worth in every aspect of my life, never fully grasping the impact I was making.  And I realized something important: the reason I felt so at peace in South Florida, is because it was the first place I fully gave myself permission to be myself.  I encouraged myself to indulge in the things that made me happy: going to the beach often, getting dressed up and hanging with girlfriends, trying new restaurants and shops and exploring the vast expanse that was the Fort Lauderdale surround.  I signed up for events and volunteered with the school and fully embraced all the things I loved doing.  I allowed myself to appreciate the finer things (designer bags, clothes, wine, food) that I had always felt guilty enjoying before for fear that someone would think I'm a snob.  I dressed in whatever I felt like every single day, never worrying about what others thought about it because I knew they didn't care! The environment supported individuality and diversity, and I loved it.  The reason I felt so good about myself there and that I grieved it so immensely when we left was because I felt like I had to give it all back when I moved here. 

I needed to dress a certain way, I needed to have a more modest lifestyle, I needed to work in an office with a bi-monthly paycheck, I felt limited in places to explore and people to hang out with and...I did it all to myself.  I made myself smaller to fit in a box that I created. It's no wonder that the last year has been hard on me!  After three years of personal freedom, I diminished myself and wondered why it wasn't working. 

I recently picked up a Lucky Find title at the library, one that has been circling around for the last year or so with a lot of hype.  It was called "Let Them" by Mel Robbins.  Initially, I thought, oh it'll just be another self-help book, I'm sure my many years of therapy at this point have already taught me all the things.  I was wrong.  The Universe must have known I needed those lessons and placed them in front of me at the exact right time.   Without going into a full book review, the overarching concept of the book is to let them- other people, your family, your friends, people online, etc, do think/say/act however they want. Their actions are their own and they don't need to affect you.  The second part of the concept says let me- choose how I want to react or not react. It is a simple mantra that subtly shifts your mindset into letting go of control of the things you cannot control, and focusing on the things you can control.  This isn't a new theory.  We've been singing "Let It Go" Elsa style and "Let It Be" Beatles style for many years prior to this book being published. The key difference is the let me portion.  I've been telling myself to let go of all the wrong things and instead of finding peace, I created an environment of self-doubt and unfulfillment. 

Here's how the book really nailed things into place.  With every move, I've always done all the right things on paper.  Sometimes they were enough, but in others, they weren't. And what I've come to understand over and over is that the place is not the problem.  It's who I am in the place that makes it work or not.  For years, I've let what others think of me (whether they were valid opinions or not) shape who I was in each place I was. In South Florida, it was the first time I took ownership of who I wanted to be and I didn't even know I did it.  So when we moved here and I said goodbye to that life, I felt like I had to say goodbye to that me as well.  

Through a year of wrestling with myself, trials and errors, and a lot of talking (thanks you to my people for listening) I've finally found the courage to take ownership of who I am in this place and shoot for the dreams that I've always wanted to explore, but never felt confident to try.  

I've enrolled in an Interior Design course with hopes of eventually helping others design the homes of their dreams.  The many projects still left on my punch list for this home have a renewed sense of impact, as they will likely be what I use to begin my first portfolio.  I will be continuing to write in various forms and will eventually finish the novel I'm writing in hopes of publishing it one day.  Most importantly, I'm going to live my life embracing the things that bring me joy and help others however I can. 

So.  All of that is to say, after a year of being in this home-- in St. Augustine, Florida, things are exactly how they were meant to turn out, and I'm excited to start seeing the goodness this place has to offer now that my mindset is open to it. <3

Stay tuned for another blog post of the before and afters of all the projects we've been working on over the last year, there have been A LOT!

In case you're in need of a good book to inspire you, I highly recommend Let Them, by Mel Robbins.