Well, as some of you may know, we’ve decided to follow our destiny and move to the Islands. As some of you may not know, we are firm believers in Karma and releasing decisions to our spiritual underwriters, or higher selves. Recently, staying focused on finding the positives in life has been a bit of a challenge. We’ve decided to step it up a notch and get out of living in this reactive mode!
So, when life dealt us a losing hand, we were forced to rethink everything. Paths suddenly became visible that we’d only dreamt about for years. Through the haze of chaos and confusion, we saw glimmering lights from those new paths that lead to our dream. At that point the hardest decision came about – do we risk it all and chase our dream? Honestly, I’m not a huge risk taker so the decision didn’t come as easily as most of you would think. It was hard for me to release the decision process to my higher self and follow my heart. If you haven’t read a book called The Saint, The Surfer and The CEO, you should take time to read it. I’d been studying out of it for some time before the rock pile of my life fell over, and in hindsight, I see that I’d unknowingly been preparing myself emotionally for this avalanche. I was able to get through my grieving process fairly quickly and step into the next set of decisions.
What goes with us, how does it get there, and most stressful – How do we tell everyone?
The more I put things down on paper, the clearer the path became. I didn’t allow myself to focus on any one problem, but rather made a note of it and kept moving ahead. The decision to go was made… I had to believe that any foreseeable problems were really just opportunities for creative thinking. I refuse to allow myself to think, feel or believe anything negative. The more I lied to myself, the more the positives became truths, the truths became realities and those realities were my dreams unfolding. Paths were formed through the obstacles and light shone where there once was only darkness. Life once again has purpose and hope. I can feel myself coming alive again.
Not that feeling alive makes it any easier to explain to those we love that we’re moving more than 2500 miles away. In fact, I haven’t said anything on Facebook yet about the avalanche I experienced OR about our family’s move – but I suppose this blog will start the rumors! I just haven’t been able to bring myself to do it… to say goodbye. Wow, it’s harder than I thought. But again, I’m looking past that to the much clearer paths ahead of me and I’m really excited.
Moving across the ocean is much more complicated than one might imagine if you have a well-rooted physical life with a large house and way too many “treasures”… Deciding what to keep and what to sell became a family project – the 3 of us went from room to room and talked about what was important to us. Then came the thousands of Craigslist ads and the ULTIMATE garage sale. We’ve met a few really special people and even booked a few more photo shoots before we leave (thanks!!!) We reaped in plenty of rewards from Day One of our Garage Sale; however, Day Two was very typical for Seattle activities – Called on account of RAIN… Again, no negativity – we packed it up and we’ll do it again next Monday, Memorial Day (Come one, come all!). It only took 2 days to get our house rented out again and we really like the family moving in – the kind of folks that you know you can be friends with for life… All good, no worries!
So there you have it – the big announcement. The decision has been made and we’re following our dream. Stay tuned for more of the exciting events as they unfold. We’ll be blogging our travels, the opportunities that present themselves and some really bizarre and out of the way places to visit when we leave the comfort zone of our living room couches. You might even see some of our adventures and photography in an upcoming Chit-Chat-Café book, as we’ve been approached by author and talk show host, Gerry Bradley, to provide content for both the next book in the series as well as his Saturday morning radio show on KLAY 1180AM. Great things to come! Thanks for following us here on our adventure and we’ll keep your chair ready for you!
http://pennypalmerphotography.com
