Change

I normally stick to purely fitness-related posts on here. Every so often I touch on the mental health side of living a balanced life. Today, it's mostly the mental side.

For me, change is difficult. Big changes are even more difficult for me. But once I make a decision to make a big giant change, I usually barrel through with plans and then have major moments of breaking down in the midst of all of it because everything's changing and it's so overwhelming.

Changes in my daily diet, workout habits, and things that I do each day or week are both more and less difficult for me than paradigm shifts. The daily is where I find it difficult to change fully because I get comfortable. I get lax. And I have to remind myself each and every day to make the change. I need a blog and a support network to keep going, because without it, I just honestly start to believe the voice inside my head that says that it really doesn't matter.

The paradigm shifts are different.

Choosing a college.
Choosing a major.
Moving across the country.
Changing jobs.
Buying a house.
Starting a business.
Getting married.

These are all things that turn your life upside down. And they usually are things that take a couple months of preparation and then one day, the shift happens. Status changes. Or at least that's how it is for me. I looked at colleges for a year, and then decided. When I chose my major, I had narrowed it down before applying to schools, but took a week to decide on Path A versus Path B. And once I made the decision, it was done. I was there. I went through this again for graduate school. And then choosing a career. It took 6 months for me to explore, interview, and decide, finally, to become a geophysicist and move to Houston. And once I did, it was done. I changed companies after looking for less than 6 months. I decided to buy my house after looking for a new apartment or house to rent for 2 month & realizing I would rather spend that amount of money on buying versus renting. I decided to buy over the course of a week. I started looking right away. It took 5 months to finally close on the house I call a home right now. It was again something that I made the decision and was off. I took a long time to warm up to the idea of taking a big giant risk on my BeerSox business. But once I made the realization that I wanted to give it a go, I gave it my all and made it happen. It wasn't as much of a paradigm shift, it was thought out much more thoroughly, but it was a major shift & change. When I met James, my whole perspective changed. We thoroughly prepared for marriage. But it's another thing where the build up happens quickly and then we made the decision to marry and everything shifted into focus.

And now we're facing another paradigm shift.

We're selling my little bungalow in the Heights and moving out to the suburbs where we can have a house to fit us and the future family we plan on growing together (no, that paradigm shift hasn't begun, yet). And in true Katie fashion, it was an idea we'd tossed around a little, but not a lot, then ran the numbers one day and realized we'd be stupid to hold on to my perfect single-lady home when we know we need more space and we know we want to eventually raise a family, and we know that it makes sense financially. And so we're off at breakneck speed. Listing the home next week, seeing what we have to work with and then starting the home search in Sugar Land.

I have misgivings, but they're all emotional misgivings. I had a lot of personal growth in this house. I met my husband while living in this house. I started my business in this house. I set down roots in this house and in our neighborhood.

I love our neighborhood. I love the community, the restaurants, the walkability, and the vibrancy. It has always been my ideal.

And we're leaving it to go and live in an area where the homes are mostly the same. Where the emphasis is spending time at home with playing children, and where school districts fall more into the decision making than what restaurants we can walk to and how many bike paths are accessible. But we can't stay in our little 982 square foot bungalow without making other sacrifices.

To me, this is a huge paradigm shift. It's not just a change in location, it's a change in lifestyle.
And part of me has already started mourning the things that I love about the bungalow.
I'm sure that I'll become more excited about the move and thinking of the things that we're opening the opportunity for when we finally are able to house search in Sugar Land. Right now, I don't have a home to visualize there, so I'm in this half-world where I know what I'm leaving, and haven't quite figured out where we're going except that it's different and a bit scary and daunting.

At the same time, I'm working at the visualization. I've mentioned that it will be a lifestyle change, and it will. So I'm trying to figure out how to harness this paradigm shift and to incorporate smaller lifestyle changes into it. We won't be as close to all of these amazing restaurants we have in the Heights, so going to them will be a treat for us every so often. We'll also use that as a reason to cook at home and make weekly meal planning a priority. Since we know that we can't just walk down the street to our favorite restaurant, or order from our favorite local pizza joint, we'll have to plan for meals at home. We keep talking about doing our own yardwork, so maybe this is that opportunity to really take it under control ourselves. We'll have room for relatives and friends to stay over.

There are a lot of benefits, and I'm trying to visualize it as taking life down a notch to a slower level. Focusing on developing our home life together. Building that solid foundation that we'll be able to adapt to welcome children into the family (eventually). Because we do want to raise a family. And that will be a whole new adventure for the future.

~Katie