THE DECISION
There are two kinds of change as I see it. There are the changes that happen to you (job losses and promotions, unexplained illness and loss, having a stray dog show up on your doorstep...), and those that you choose yourself. Our move falls into the latter category. So, when people out here say: what brought you to Bainbridge Island,? they are often surprised to hear that we brought us to Bainbridge Island. Our move was very intentional.
What prompts two people to uproot and leave two perfectly good (great, actually) jobs, wonderful friends and neighbors, an established routine, a world-class city?...well, the list could go on and on. There isn’t a nice tight answer, but here are a few thoughts: pursuit of a new adventure, a hope for a more active/outdoorsy lifestyle and a stronger connection to nature, a break from the routine, an escape from the “city-ness” of said world-class city, and the creation of a home of our own making. Not a house of our own making (we definitely aren’t the build it types), but a chosen home. A place where we elected to be, not a “well, we might as well settle here...” kind of thing.
I think lots of people think we’re nuts (they may be right) and some were saddened by our choice (namely, family who lived close by); but so far, this journey has been (almost) everything we had hoped for. It’s not often that you get the opportunity to make big life changes like this, and from what I’ve seen, it only gets harder and harder as you get more established in a routine, or as your kids grow and uprooting them becomes less and less attractive.
So we’re here, in our chosen home, with our new chosen lives and learning all about what that means. We have a new (to us) house, a new commute, new friends, a new school experience for our daughter, and a new city and island to explore. As I previously mentioned, I’m giving a lot of thought to what ‘home’ means in these early stages as we redefine it for ourselves. I’ll give a bit more backstory on our move, choice of place, etc. before delving more into these thoughts, but they’ve taken up residence in my mind as of late.
I’ll close with this photo my husband and I took on our last walk on the beach in Evanston, IL, just two days before he departed to begin his new job in Seattle (my daughter and I stayed behind an extra month and a half to sell the house). It was a beautiful winter day in Chicago and we felt it appropriate to return to Evanston where we had spent so many of our early days together almost ten years before this shot was taken. I like the symbolism of the winter of our tenure in Chicago, and the optimism of the sunshine on the city in the distance. One of the few chosen homes in my life, Chicago was nothing but sunshine for me in those ten years. I met my husband there, tried on three careers there (the final of which was my beloved business), adopted our sweet Sally dog there, and gave birth to our amazing daughter in Evanson Hospital. I now refer to Chicago as “home” even though I grew up in Western Pennsylvania. I don’t yet know where our current adventure will lead, nor when I will make the transition and start referring to our little island as “home.” I’m fascinated, though, by what will establish it as such in my mind and my heart, and I look forward to sharing this journey and to thinking aloud about what all of this means.
Next up: THE ISLAND.
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