Leaving California… Why We Left
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On the first day of the year (2023), Nick and I sat around the kitchen table for an hour after the kids finished their lunch and went off into the other room to play. I looked at Nick after looking out the window for some time and quietly spoke, “I can’t believe we’re here…”
Here. New Hampshire. New England. This 120-year-old farmhouse. Home.
It had been a whirlwind of a year. And while we sat around our table, we quickly dove back into the last year, remembering every little step of the journey, quickly realizing that one year ago, on January 1, 2022, we had no idea that our life was about to change completely, upside down and inside out.
On January 2, 2022, I was driving myself and the kids back from a homeschool coop when I started violently shivering on the drive home. Within the next few hours, I realized I had Covid, and my entire family was not all that far behind me. We were stuck in the house for 2 whole weeks, my husband included. This was a new experience for Nick, although not all that new for me. While he is a very hands-on, active parent in our family life, he’s never been in the house for 2 weeks straight with a real taste of what our day-to-day life looks like.
There was homeschooling, there were meltdowns, there were squeals of joy, there were constant and never-ending needs and demands, there was little to no time to yourself…
…and it was just all a bit too much from where he was standing.
One night I was standing at the stove, the dim light from the hood was the only light, and I was staring ahead at the pot of spaghetti sauce as I slowly moved the spoon in a circular motion.
I could feel Nick’s presence closing in on me.
“Jen, I’m having mixed feelings about you right now…”
“Oh yeah? Do tell…” I looked up at him with a mix of confusion and a curious smirk. What the hell was he about to say right now?
“On one hand, I am in awe of all you do every day…”
okay, so this is good…
“On the other, I’m actually kind of pissed at you!”
“What why?!” I spit out, half laughing…
“Why haven’t you asked for more help? I had no idea, Jen. This isn’t sustainable or okay…”
I stared back at the pot. I would be lying if I didn’t have those thoughts regularly. Having our third baby (who I think may have been slightly colicky) right before we were all boarded tight in our homes in 2020 didn’t do the greatest things for my mind.
…But I chose this, I thought. This is the life I wanted. Am I allowed to ask for more help when it’s the life you chose? Am I allowed to ask for more help, even if I’m drowning, if this is my contribution to the family?
There was a long silence between us as he just watched me swirl the wooden spoon around the pan.
“Jen… what do you need?”
“I guess I need to go back to work!”. I honestly don’t know if that was entirely true, but I knew something needed to change. Looking back on it all, what I really needed was a little bit of space… a little bit of time. I was feeling numb and angry a lot of the days. I often woke up with my first thought being “ah fuck”.
This was not the mother I ever thought I would be.
This was not the person I ever intended to be.
I used to be fun. I was passionate. I was lively and energetic.
When the hell did I get so… dull… and grumpy?
For the next hour we sat on the bedroom floor as our kids played across the hall. We brainstormed how to get me back in the office working with him. But again, I wasn’t entirely sure that was what I wanted or needed… I just knew we needed to do something different.
Then came the sentence from Nick that was the catalyst for the landslide…
“Then we need to move back to Santa Barbara…” he said.
“What?! Why?!” basically squawking. While we had talked about moving away from California for about 7 years at this point, I much preferred where we lived in the valley, and I loved the friends we had made there.
“If you want to work, we’ll need a sitter… so we need to live closer to the office.”
I felt incredibly resistant, although change is what my heart needed so desperately… so the idea of any kind of change felt exhilarating.
So, we set up a meeting to look at a condo in town. And while the condo was a cool space, my stomach felt tight and I knew there were quiet tugs on my heart that I was going my own way, and not following the God whispers we had been hearing for so long. The whispers that God had put on our heart saying, “You need to go.” The very reason we continually brought up the conversation of moving every few months for 7 years.
On the ride home from Santa Barbara, Nick turned and said, “I can’t live in Santa Barbara again, Jen.”
“Okay, I’m so glad you said that. I was feeling that too.”
He went on… “and honestly, I can’t live in California anymore. I think it’s time to finally leave altogether. We’re not supposed to be here anymore”.
Now don’t get me wrong… Santa Barbara had been a magical place to get to live for a decade. We felt so blessed. And I would not take back one minute of that time there.
I mean…
But we were no longer supposed to be there, and the more we tried to strong arm what we thought our path should look like, the louder the whispers got, and it finally had gotten so loud we could no longer ignore it, and we knew it would never stop until we left.
Let me just say, those little whispers, never usually get smaller…
Like all true things, once you acknowledge and accept what is true, it settles your heart. That’s not to say we weren’t scared as hell. On paper the whole thing looked crazy I’m sure. Nick had a thriving practice in Santa Barbara, CA, we had a great group of friends, I beautiful home that we owned…I mean, it was Santa Barbara county we were leaving… nuts, we were all nuts, I’m sure people were thinking.
…But every cell in our bodies knew it was “right”. And once you begin to move toward taking action on what you’re called to do, it happens quickly, and it almost happens TO you.
For the next few months, everything happened. We had what felt like an external force open and close doors for us so fast our heads were spinning. But it only confirmed for us that we were doing the right thing.
We sold our home (and it sold before it went on the market from a friend), we bought a travel trailer, we renovated it, we told our kids, and we told my husband’s practice…
And where we had no clue that we would finally be leaving California on the first of that year, by July 2, we were locking the front door of the home we had birthed 2 of our 3 babies in, pulling out of our yard in an RV we bought in March, launching into a journey on the open road with no idea where we would land or when we would get there.
It was a heck of a year. (to be continued)
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