A Sense of Loss

A Sense of Loss

Dan recently took this photo while on his day off with Carter

 

Recently, I had the opportunity to be part of a leadership seminar through my department at work. There were many excellent points discusses throughout the entire course of the seminar, but the portion on change is what really hit a chord with me. Hmm, I wonder why? The speaker, Chuck Stoner*, spoke specifically about the fact that every change in life comes with a sense of loss and grieving, even when the change is something positive that we are looking forward to.

When change comes, there is always a different path that will never be available to us again. Dan and I are currently standing in that divergence of choices and the other paths that we will be walking away from are so clear to me I can almost physically see them. I can see Carter at his first day of kindergarten, baseball game, and a host of other things that every mom cherishes and it does fill me with a sense of longing for that path. I can see that our grandparents are getting older and know in my heart that there is a very real possibility that being gone for 5-10 years or more means we might not get to see them again before they die. We may miss births of nieces and nephews, friends’ weddings, and a lot more events that we can never get back once they are over. We will be moving away from Dan’s very close-knit family that we spend time with multiple days a week.

All of these things and more impose a real weight to the decisions that we are making. They give more value to the good life that we are leaving behind to follow our dream of cruising. Does that mean that we will regret the choice to leave? I don’t think so. The excitement of moving forward and doing something new is far too great for us to look back wistfully for very long. But it does make me appreciate the time we have left a little more.

Follow your Dreams. Follow the Horizon.

*Dr. Charles Stoner and his speaking partner Tom Bower gave one of the best seminars I have ever attended. If you ever have a chance to go to one, I would highly recommend it. Also, you can find some of Chuck’s books on business and leadership here.

House for Sale!

House for Sale!

What does this have to do with putting our house up for sale? He is standing on the counter… in the house, obviously.

After weeks of preparation, repairs, upgrades, and cleaning our house is officially on the market today. Honestly it is a surreal moment for us. We’ve been working towards our dream for over a year and our progress so far has been almost completely intangible. Until now. When we said things were starting to get real, we weren’t kidding.

Our plan is to sell our house and find a job in (preferably) Florida. We would like to be able to take an entire season preparing both ourselves and our future boat. There are going to be adjustments that need to be made both to our future boat and to its occupants. We will be downsizing from a 2400 ft² house to around approximately 400 ft². It sounds rough, but that is actually the size of Michele and my first house. I hadn’t thought about that until we were looking at deck plans of a potential boat and I mentioned something about the size (or lack thereof). She said, “Dan, that is around the same size as our Gift house… it won’t be a problem.” (side note: Michele and I had a house on Gift Avenue and always refer to it as our Gift house.) And shes right… when we lived in the Gift house we both knew it was smaller than pretty much any other house in existence, but it worked for us. We didn’t feel cramped. We just used our space wisely.

It is very easy, for me especially, to get caught up in the details… the day to day lists of stuff we need to get done to make our dream a reality. It helps to take a step back every once in a while and take stock of the situation. We just listed our house for sale so we can go live on a boat, that’s pretty amazing.

Follow your dreams. Follow the Horizon.

I can see clearly now

I can see clearly now

I realized a few days ago that it has been a year since Michele and I first talked about cruising. Looking back, I’m amazed at how much we have been able to accomplish in that time. It also puts into perspective what we have ahead of us. Up to now, much of what we have accomplished has been intangible. We’ve learned how to sail (we’ll never be experts), rid ourselves of tens of thousands of dollars of debt, and many other things, big and small, to prepare ourselves for the cruising life. Now, however, we stand at a precipice… where our preparations will transition from intangible and easily reversible to life changing. A few minor touch-ups notwithstanding, our house is ready for us to put it up for sale. I’ve had several successful interviews in Florida as well as locally (more money). Basically, things are starting to get real. Really real.

Both of our LASIK procedures went wonderfully and we can see 20/15 now. The clarity of our vision is amazing. Unexpectedly, the change in physical vision prompted me to take stock of our preparations, goals, and dreams. Now, more than ever, we are committing to following the dream. Sure, it’s scary at times… but its extremely fulfilling living life intentionally. We wouldn’t have it any other way. Follow your dreams. Follow the Horizon.

P.S. We’re done with the cheesie eye related post titles… sorry we put you through that.

We’ve had a busy week

We’ve had a busy week

Zoe during better times

It’s been a hectic week! We weren’t kidding when we said There is a Lot Going On Around Here.

As a follow up to Good Bye Awesome Car, Hello Future our second awesome car has been sold! We have been looking for an opportunity to sell it, as eliminating our last car payment will really boost our savings. We’re now driving my parent’s Jeep which they are selling us for a very good price that we think we should easily be able to recoup when we sell it. Parting ways was much easier this time… each step forward is a step closer to cast-off day. The bedroom has been painted, the carpet is on the way, and I’m done with the classroom portion of Divemaster training. Next up is assisting with classes and student training dives.

Of all of the progress made this week, perhaps the most momentous was telling my parents. My family is very close (we live 2 blocks away from them)… so we weren’t exactly sure how they would take the news that we are planning on moving thousands of miles away. More on that in our next post.

On a much sadder note, our dog Zoe passed away on Saturday. Although she was only four years old, she had been battling Addison’s disease for three of those. Steroids twice a day for three years allowed her to live an active life but also took a toll on her small body. Even though we understand the necessity of giving up our dogs before leaving for life at sea, this was definitely not the way we had planned on saying good-bye. It also has given us just a little reminder of the good things that we will be leaving behind. Even fulfilling your dreams can be bittersweet at times.

Follow your dreams. Follow the Horizon.

What Do You Believe

What Do You Believe

Playing horse is just one of many great ways to spend some time!

If you listen closely enough throughout the course of your day, you will probably hear a mention of “spending time” more than once. “I spent some time going through that report…” or “I’m going to spend some time with my kids this weekend…”, you know what I’m talking about. Unfortunately, I think that too many of us don’t actually realize the consequences of what spending our time actually means.

Americans, in general, are not well known for our ability to save money. We like to spend it as it comes. (Not exactly the most prudent choice, but we’re not talking about what’s advisable, just what is true.) However, it seems that the opposite mindset is true of our time. For some reason our society has decided that if we work like maniacs now, we will be able to retire when we are at some unknown “older” age… at which point we will have “earned” enough time to relax and enjoy life. We have, unfortunately, picked the wrong commodity to try and hold on to.

In a program called The Truth Project, a recurring question that is asked is this: “Do I really believe that what I believe is really real?” That question has plagued me ever since I first heard it. People say that time is our most precious asset, it’s the only thing that we can never have more of. But do we really believe that’s true? Because if we really believed that, wouldn’t we do everything that we could to cherish every second and be a little more judicious with them?

My son was born almost 20 months ago. They have truly been the fastest 20 months of my life, and I’m sure that the months are not going to start rolling by any slower in the future. It’s about time for us to start spending them a little more wisely. Dan and I are in the process of finding out what it really means to live what we believe. I hope you will find out for yourself.

Follow your Dreams. Follow the Horizon.