What Do I Even Want?

I’ve never quite been sure how to make a house a home. There are countless houses I admire, a few aesthetics I find particularly pleasing, but no single style I can hang my hat on.

Add to that a growing daughter developing her own distinct sense of taste—distinct from my own in almost too many ways—and arranging this new home feels like climbing a mountain.

Mother and daughter climbing a mountain can be quite the delightful adventure. Strenuous at times, yes, but with so many beautiful and breathtaking moments as well, to say nothing of the opportunities to bond.

Today we string twinkle lights, something we both agree on, and use them to connect her sensibilities with my own. I gift her a vintage suitcase, she arranges her clothes inside. The bouquet full of all the colors she loves I sort into two smaller arrangements, each with their own minimalistic color palette.

We pick our way along, finding a path, not always the path of least resistance, but the path that pleases us both. Together we find flow.

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Who do I want to be?

It’s so hard to even begin to know when there’s so much noise telling me who I could be and what I should be.

I watched Pinterest’s birth and before that there were mood boards—both supposed to be useful tools to aid in the exploration of questions like this one. They never worked so well for me though. Torn between potentialities and images not quite being just right, my mood boards (digital or otherwise) swung between feeling like someone else’s vision and a mess of conflicting directions.

And in this internet age of infinite space the possibilities never end, so what is possible so often stays theoretical.

Daily walks are helping to lift the meta-fog. I hadn’t let myself realize how much I’d begun to miss them.

Here in our home-between-homes the walks are easy. The quietest roads, multiple engaging destinations easily within reach for the children, and even numerous benches to no walk needs to be cut short by fatigue.

A perfect place for a rebirth after burnout and I am thankful.

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Exactly four years ago a coach gave me an exercise that changed everything. I hate that phrase. So dramatic and usually people don't mean it when they say it.

I mean it.

Less than six months later we had moved to a completely different city-in a different state-living in a borrowed RV and expecting a new baby. 

Changed.

Everything.

So what was the exercise?

Nothing mind-blowing: Simply thinking through what I would choose if money were no object.

Simple isn't usually easy.

I couldn't tell her what I really wanted. I wasn't sure myself. So we started by stripping away what I knew I didn't want.

We didn't move to where we wanted to be so much as we moved away from where we knew we didn't want to be. That's how most of the changes came to be.

But I do have a strong memory of one image that popped into my head when this coach asked, "What vehicle do you want to drive?"

A very specific vehicle came to mind. Not just a make and a model, but a car owned by someone I know.

Now, four years later, the memory resurfaced for a very specific reason:

That car is now ours, given to us free and clear without even asking for it-the exact car, not just the same model and make, a gift from that someone I know.

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