Leaping from the Nest

Over the past two weeks, we gave away our single car and left our little home and community. I just realized that the only keys I have now are the ones for our bike locks.

Above: Details from packing up the Cottage.

We are carefully making our way (masked and distanced) across the country in a rented SUV. Our belongings now occupy a sliver of a shared-haul biodiesel moving truck. Our plants went to carefully chosen, loving homes. My small business is no longer rooted in California. The keys to our small, shared French farmhouse are being guarded safely in that region until we can responsibly get there. The prairie cottage is still in the architectural design phase. So, for this brief moment, we’re untethered. 

Above: Packing up after an Airbnb stay during our careful road trip / move across the country.

Is this what I expected my life would look like at 39? Honestly, I can’t remember ever having a concrete vision of what I envisioned— or if I ever envisioned anything in particular at all. I’m currently at peace with that. 

The last time I felt anything like this was several years ago when my long time employer-turned-client kicked me from her business’ nest, as her company underwent a major transition. I suddenly had no way to sink behind my usual daily comfort and routine. After years of diligent work, I found myself with no safety net, no stable healthcare and no paycheck. I urgently took everything I’d learned and applied it to creative new endeavors without a specific goal in sight. Both my business and personal worlds improved, and my life suddenly felt like my own in a way I realized it never had before. 

This current moment in my life isn’t dissimilar. 

Above: Working at an Airbnb during our careful road trip / move across the country.

I’d known that something needed to change, but that initiating and sticking to those changes wouldn’t be easy, as we’d built a life and nest we loved enormously in Venice.

Now, I’ve leapt from that nest, and I’ve pulled my family out with me.

I know it was the right decision. For growth. For creativity. For overarching sustainability. For deeper happiness. For love. And I am bubbling with excitement over our upcoming projects and experiences. But adjusting personally, as a family, and as a business — especially during such global upheaval, crisis and weariness — will take time. And I just keep reminding myself that that’s okay. We are all overwhelmed and exhausted, every single day.

As I waddle sleepily around our new landscape, I don’t feel like I’m struggling to find my footing. Instead, I feel like I’m forming a new path, and hand-placing each pebble as I go. Good things need time to take shape.