In July of 2019, just a few months after I left my corporate gig to go out on my own, we took our family to Montana for a family reunion with Ty’s family. On the way there, we made a pit stop in Coeur D’Alene for a few days to break up the typical 9 hour (with kids) road trip to Polson. I’d never been but Ty assured me we’d like it there. He was wrong.
We LOVED it there. The second I walked out on the patio of our room, I felt this wave of nostalgia. I’d never been there before, but it just felt like I had. It felt like so many memories had been created there already, and I knew we’d be back to this very spot for years to come. It was beautiful, the people were so incredibly friendly and it just felt like home. We ended up stopping there again on the way home from the reunion. The first night there on the way home, Ty and I recapped our adventure to MT and agreed, we’d be making a change. We knew then we’d eventually end up over there. At the time, we felt the pull to move to Montana, but were realistic that any kind of move like that would be dependent on Ty’s job now. I wasn’t working full time anymore, and as a micro-business owner just getting started on things, we were still very reliant on his income. We’d have to be patient.
Fast forward 8 months, we’re living through history in the making, any momentum I’d been feeling with my business seemed to suddenly hault, and any hopes and dreams for any kind of positive change seemed far fetched. Survival mode kicked in, and taking it hour by hour seemed to be my only option.
We made our way back to CDA right after the 4th of July, and while there were reminded yet again, why we love it so much. We saw many smiles, had great conversations that weren’t at all related to politics, viruses, masks, and mainstream media headlines. We felt more normalcy than we’d felt in months. It was a breath of fresh air, and let me tell you, we all needed it. I didn’t want to leave. As a mom to small kids, mothering through the last year, I’ve never felt more protective of how they experience the world around them. My instincts and my values have never been challenged more, and I won’t ever apologize for how I tried to maintain a sense of normalcy for them. I’ve never worked harder in my life. I’ve never been more exhausted.
A few months ago, when Ty was asked to interview for a job that would move us central to a new territory that covered all of Montana, Northern Idaho, and Eastern Washington, we knew. Our time had come, and this was our opportunity to ignite our own light at the end of the tunnel. We felt the pull towards CDA given how central it would be, but felt discouraged as we learned we weren’t the only people wanting into Idaho. We couldn’t compete with the market until we sold our house, and even then we weren’t sure we could. We decided to lean into the idea of staying on the Washington side, and potentially building in Spokane Valley. This is when trusting the process became obvious, but simultaneously harder. The builder was taking his time on getting us the information we needed in order to lock in the plans for the lot. We got closer to listing the house, still waiting for the final pricing. I continued to watch the market, seeing “pending” across house by house by house as the days went by in both Spokane, and cities in Northern, Idaho. Not knowing how this would all go, we decided to extend an already planned trip to Lake Chelan in May, knowing we needed to be in Ty’s new market by May 1. (Lake Chelan is quite close to Wenatchee, which is a city Ty will also cover.)
This past Monday, the skies opened up and God gave me a swift kick in the ass. I didn’t know why exactly, but I had reached my limit. Something told me to just go. Search, look, send, repeat. I listened to my instincts, I trusted the timing, and I went for it. Sure enough, there was a house that’s price had just dropped by $30K, which took it right into the range we wanted to stay in for a move-in ready fixer upper. You know by now, we got the house, and things are falling nicely into place. Yesterday it hit me, we’re right where we are supposed to be. It couldn’t have happened a moment sooner, or a moment later. It seemed like we’d never get here but here we sit. We were made for the waiting, even on the hardest of days.
If you’re on the cusp of a new start, desperately want change, or feeling angst in the in-between, it won’t last forever. Find peace in the waiting if you can, but whatever you do, don’t wait for your light at the end of the tunnel when you can ignite it yourself.