If you have been a frequent visitor in this space you will notice that I have felt quite unsettled as of late. I explained it to someone like this: We’re trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, but not only are we missing pieces, we also have pieces from other puzzles that don’t belong in the mix. As a result we are constantly trying different combinations, adding here and taking away there but never feeling quite comfortable and knowing that things are just not right.
Another way to put it, is think of a great pair of shoes…whatever that means to you. I once bought a pair of shoes for work (at the time I was working in a little tea house). I went for practicality. They must have been Clarks or something similar. They were comfortable and practical, but they definitely weren’t my style. That being said, I have also bought shoes in the past that were my style, and yet, completely uncomfortable. In either case, more often than not, the shoes gather dust in my closet instead of getting worn.
That’s a little bit how I feel about life right now. I would venture to say that since moving back to Canada, I have been living in Clarks. (Don’t get me wrong, I talked Ben into a great pair of Clarks when we lived in Cambridge, but let’s just say I have never found a “OMG have to have them” pair of shoes in the Clark’s section of the shoe store.) Without a Plan A we went with Plan B and moved back to Ladner, where we had once lived, and knew well. It was easy and comfortable finding schools for the kids, activities and a good grocery store. But the commute into the city left life a little lack-lustre. We thought maybe we could do it because “that is just what people who live in the suburbs do.” But guess what. We are not most people. And I don’t know why we keep falling into the trap of thinking that we are. My husband is a musician. We don’t have conventional jobs, we don’t hold conventional hours, we don’t care about the big house, the SUV or the fat paycheques…
and yet…
and yet in the past year, money has become a god in our lives because we are constantly thinking about how we don’t have any. We are constantly thinking about how to spend less and make more.
All the while, our children pay the price.
I did the math and we spend over 20 hours a week in transit – 20 hours that we could be spending as a family instead of on the road.
Something has to change.
Things are changing.
It’s time for a new chapter.
I feel like the past year has been more like a postlude to Cambridge – not really embracing where we were at, but rather mourning what we no longer had. So I invite you to journey with us….
Curious as to what the changes are? Well, I guess you will just have to come back and find out, but I will give you a hint, in less that a month, this will be less than a kilometre away…
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