“I can easily stay here another year”

Lately I have been feeling a lot of deep shifting in our lives. I am noticing that being patient seems a much bigger challenge, that our capacity to be present in the moment requires a lot more effort, even irritability shows up in the most unexpected ways… The end of the school year is getting closer and the pressure of having to make some difficult decisions about the future is building up and taking a toll on us. 

It has been an incredible nine months of growth, self discovery and wonder but even so it is hard not to look back in time and reflect on all the good things that we put on hold back in Santa Monica. Last June we started an amazing journey and now we need to decide wether to bring it to a close or to embrace it as our path to walk towards the future and keep going. So, what do we want?

Going back to Santa Monica feels safe. We had built a great life for our family that gave us security and stability: a well-paid stable job for Jeff that was demanding and stressful but also challenging and empowering, a school system where Pia, Marcus and Clara could go back to and continue on their journey through education with their friends, expected and familiar mommy duties (and ideally an added a part-time job to start writing a new chapter for myself), a few vacations a year, good friends old and new, visits with the grandparents, yearly Christmas and Thanksgiving celebrations surrounded by family, weekends in the wine country… Going back to life as we knew it could continue to flow comfortably for many years to come. Some adjustments along the way, expected milestones achieved, some challenges here and there (nothing super major assuming that everybody stays healthy and that we all continue to nurture each other emotionally)… Pretty good! 

Continuing forward on our journey is challenging but, what comes with Challenge? Over the past nine months challenge continues to bring us much growth and satisfaction emotionally, creatively and intellectually. Emotionally we are learning to live with the uncertainty of not always having control. Living with uncertainty is allowing us to develop our capacity to be more open, confident and tolerant to roll with the twists and turns of life. Creatively we have become resourceful at building a new life from scratch. A life built from the inside out, from deep in within us towards the world. Our motor is self-motivation, our incentive is our family unit, our goal is our journey day to day, moment to moment. Intellectually we are learning by doing, by trying, by falling, by standing up again, by taking turns, by succeeding, by falling again… 

There are many variables that still confuse us and all our steps forward come with many unanswered questions and few rational answers…