Rough week in many ways! Beginnings are also endings of a sort…endings of exactly how things are at a given moment in time and that is just hard, hard, hard! We are emotional wrecks…grumpy, snippy, nippy, teary wrecks! While our time in Florida has been a quieter, more introspective time in many ways, the friends we made may not be large in number but they are rich in their depth! They are soul friends who we believe will all come visit us in Australia…each and every one of them! My particular way of dealing with this change has been to not look at it as a long term move (although it might be) but rather as an adventure where we can make a change at any point in time if we wish. Plus, we are keeping our Florida home! Change is stressful! Saying see you later (never goodbye) is hard on the heart!
We each had some wonderful time over the past couple of weeks hanging with friends. Our social butterfly Eve led the way. Eve’s youth group and the Adams family have meant so very much to our sweet Evie girl these past two years! One last sleepover and time together last week filled Eve’s tank until they come visit us in AU!
Dinner with BFF Brad, birthday celebrating with dear Sarah and her expert help with packing, last goodbye’s with Alexis and Eve’s sweet friends and a wonderful last evening writing wishes on wish paper and sending them into the sky, all helped soothe our hearts. Of course, the drive to the airport and last hugs with Miss Sylvia was wonderful and hard all at once. The past nine months of having Miss Sylvia living right here with us in the carriage house have been such a blessing to our family! We will always treasure the time we had together! Now, start planning those visits!!!!!!!
I have been awake since 2 am….heart racing, butterflies in the tummy, cannot think straight….anxiety! Today, Eve and I fly to Los Angeles to meet the rest of our unit before first boarding the animal babies Saturday night for their trip to Melbourne, AU and quarantine and then our flight to Brisbane next Monday. How do I let Lawson talk me into these adventures?! On Tuesday morning, Lawson, Sophie, Dalai, Dani, Felix and Karo Kitty pulled out of Seagrove Beach in our trusty old minivan to head west toward LA. The decision to road trip rather than fly was based in part on giving our animals one less flight to deal with. It seemed the least we could do to make things a wee bit easier on them. They think their humans have lost their minds! I think our animal babies may be way smarter than us!
Here we go!!!!!!!
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One of my dearest friends in the world passed away last year at a very young age. My friend left many dreams unfulfilled. We had so many things we were going to do together. I have heard her whispering in my ear all these months “do it Susan…go for it…you won’t regret this adventure”. During the toughest bits of this process, I have taken comfort in these whisperings. We are in the thick of some of the most exhausting, disorienting weeks of our life. There have been/are days where I just want to throw in the towel but then I will hear my friend’s whispers and put my head down and keep moving forward. We are tired to the bone at the moment! Exhaustion is not too strong of a word but being determined to die without regrets pushes me/us through! I think my friend would give anything to go back and throw off some of the bowlines! She will be sailing away from this safe harbor in my heart!
This week has been a bizarre combination of getting ready for Australia and getting our Florida home ready for holiday rental. I am a nester by nature. Home is incredibly important to me. To shift gears from this being our home to a business has been difficult for me. We brought this home back to life and now we are leaving it for most of the year. What?! I know, I know. People do this all the time. It’s just not something I have ever aspired to do. One of the most humorous parts of getting the house ready for rental management has been the addition of (excuse my language) big ass television’s in every room. It is so very not us. Friends have actually laughed when they walked in our home and saw these new additions. We have had the same 32 inch television for a decade. As a feng shui consultant, television’s in the bedroom makes me crazy but this is now a business and what vacationers want are televisions….big ones! I confess to just not getting it when a few hundred yards away you have this….
but I don’t have to get it…I just have to get this house ready! In addition to the tv’s, we have also sold our girls beds to make room for bunk beds and a king size bed and have taken my yoga studio/office apart to create a teenage hang out. We continue to pack away boxes which the girls then deliver to our storage units. It is all very, very weird and has created an enormous amount of anxiety in me. I return again and again to my dear friends whispers of “just keep going…you won’t be disappointed”. After all, we are headed here…..
I posted this on our unencumbered joy instagram account yesterday and it seems applicable for this blog post as well. We are totally in the mad zone!
And by mad I mean losing our minds and tempers flaring a bit too. Well mine anyway (scratch that everybody’s)! I am generally a very easy keel kind of person but the moving process, getting rid of 75% of what we own, putting my childhood home on the market, getting this house ready for rental and not being able to fully use my predominant arm and hand due to the burn….well, I am a little raw emotionally…and tired, oh so very, very tired! I know from all our prior moves this part of the process is when the wheels start to come off the bus a bit….our wheels are hanging on by a thread! This is the point where breakdown occurs!
It has taken me longer than it should to put my parents home on the market. It is two hours from where we live and I have been unable to fully keep up with the yard. We have completely renovated the inside to make way for a young family to someday buy it. I just kept putting that someday out there a bit further. Maybe it is taking Australia to force me to let go? It might sound silly but the house has been a bit of a sibling to me. Let me explain that.. 2108 Brookhill Rd was the backdrop to my and my parents life and then with my own little unit as an adult with my parents. It was the only other observer of our shared life. While our home was full of aunts, uncles, cousins and friends, no one else was there full time. My seeing things this way probably reveals a lot about how I always felt about being an only child. I always wanted siblings so I guess the house became an extension of my parents. It is like losing them all over again! Over the years of meeting other only children my observation is that we (only children) tend to fall into two categories. We either loved it or we desperately wanted siblings…not a lot of only kids in the middle. I always felt a bit like I was on the outside looking in, watching others relate to their siblings. And, watching my parents and their siblings as well. My mom was one of nine and my dad one of five (six if you count a sibling that died young). How could they have just one? I wanted one of those! So that is how a home can become a sibling in a weird kind of way. Yesterday, for the first time since December 1969, my parents home was empty and a for sale sign in the yard! Today, I am functioning at half capacity! Breakdown!
On the breakthrough front, a couple of things have clicked into place this week. Actually, one is my parents home. Instead of trying to do this ourselves which clearly we can’t do from Australia, we listed our home with realtor and appraiser Stuart Lee. It is nice to have someone else in charge! In addition, we averted near disaster due to missing the cat vaccination by a few days. A call had to be placed to Australia to make sure we didn’t have to start the whole rabies series over again. This would have meant leaving Sophie’s cat Karo here in Florida! Fortunately, this crisis was averted! Just as a word of caution…the pet import process is long and extensive so know this before embarking on an international adventure. We are flipping crazy for taking four animals!
The other breakthrough so far this week has been getting our Australian health insurance in place! In addition to the ease of the process, we have not had such good insurance since the 1990’s. Our policy will be costing us about $250 a month for a family of four (three of whom are women). This policy in the US would cost around $3500 a month. This is for private insurance in Australia as we, of course, do not qualify for their national health insurance. I cannot speak to the quality of care until we are there but this just confirms the insanity of our current system.from a financial perspective. I do not have the answers and I know it is complicated but this is one of those areas it seems we as Americans could improve. If the number one reason for bankruptcy in America is medical expenses, maybe we are on an unsustainable path? I share this because part of what we want this blog to be is an exploration of living in another culture and what we learn from that experience. No one country has it all perfectly right…certainly not one as divided as the US currently is. I rarely venture into politics but this is not partisan. I just want good health care at a fair price as an American. I don’t think I am alone!
On the home front, we got the Florida backyard almost sorted as well. It has been a slow building block process since we first moved in. It was so incredibly overgrown it has taken four years of steady work to connect the house to the carriage house to the laundry room to the studio in a way that fits with a contemporary home. Oh, and to build a gate and fence! Now, to pressure wash and seal the stones and I think we will be set to welcome guests to our home as a rental! There is not a single inch of this property that we have not labored over and hopefully improved upon! I hope our guests love it as much as we do and that we will attract those who will take care of our property and keep coming back every year!
Breakthroughs abound even in the midst of some breakdowns! Now, we just keep going…..two weeks out till Lawson and Sophie drive the animals to Los Angeles and Eve and I fly out to meet them a few days later! Must keep going even though I would prefer to just go home to 2108 Brookhill Road…my parents aren’t there, they are traveling with me wherever I am in this amazing world we all share….just keep going!
It’s been a big week! We have decided that taking a break to hear Tom Petty in concert was key to a very productive week!! The week began with the continued interviewing of rental management companies to handle our beach home. 30a-vacay it will be! Many thanks to the Keepman family for the recommendation! I have never wanted to rent my home out but going for this long held dream has caused me to stretch beyond my comfort zone in a multitude of areas including my home!
Actually, the week began with Eve’s oral presentation of the book Into the Wild that she and Ms. Sylvia worked on earlier in the semester. Eve did a fabulous job! She is going to be ready for her new school Lourdes Hill College in Brisbane! It is official! She will be beginning there in July!
The week progressed with our signing a 7 month lease for a lovely place in the New Farm neighborhood in Brisbane! The last time we were renters was before we married 25 years ago so it’s a little weird but also kinda nice to get a break from our renovation mode! Now we just have to work with a relocation service to get furniture sorted. No shortage of details in moving internationally!
We had a visit with wonderful friends and then a lovely send off dinner with dear friends who we believe will all visit us soon! We will do more than Shoot the Hooch! That fourth bedroom will be ready y’all! Thanks for our time together! Distance really means little when friends mean so much!
One of the most exciting things that occurred this week was the news that Sophie had been accepted into the University of Queensland which is consistently in the top 50 (#52 this year) universities in the world! She has worked and sacrificed for this! We are thankful so many credits will transfer and that it is within the budget of her 529 savings plan! Our high achieving girl is stoked! Did I mention she got her acceptance during the concert? Tom Petty=Good Luck!
I have finally accepted the reality that my push through paperwork and sentimental items will be shelved until visits home. Bummer! The flash fire and my recovery have put us way behind. I hate paying for storage units but suppose if there was ever a good reason it is for taking big adventures!
A big week for runnin down a dream! Thanks always for the support! And, thanks so much Tom Petty for such a great concert!
I come by my sentimentality naturally. I do not believe my mom threw out a single letter or card she ever received. I have had to do that for her! I have worked hard over the years to not follow in my mom’s footsteps in this way but I still have held on to way too much. As our storage unit begins to fill up with our furniture, etc, space is becoming limited so I am having to attack my own attachments in this area of nostalgia. This week I have begun to dig into old letters (ours and my parents) and childhood papers, etc (mine and the girls). It is staggering how much there is! A flood of emotion comes over me as I have picked up each one and tried to decide what to let go of. The emotion has been both deep joy and deep sadness. The one thing that is constant in life is change and lots of it. We have moved five times (soon to be six) in our twenty five years together which means relationships change. As I continue to go through old letters, I am reminded anew of all that change. While this is one of many passes I have made through old sentimental items over the years, I am braver this go round. I realize how much keeping things has had to do with holding tight to times that have passed. I had a wonderfully loving childhood filled with a large extended family. As an only child, I loved having the extended family relationships to balance the only child part but as I slowly began losing that strong network of loving aunts and uncles starting in the 1990’s, I tried to hold tight to parts of that time in my life (and over the years to other times with friends)….it’s all there in the boxes of letters, boxes of love. The thing is, I don’t go back and look through those letters hardly ever. I don’t need to! Those memories are stored tightly in my heart! I don’t need them all! I am keeping some but as with everything else in this process I am realizing that when you have more than you need, you have trouble finding the really important ones. One year for my birthday I asked my dad to write me a letter in his handwriting. My dad always left cards up to my mom so this one letter is so treasured but I had trouble finding it because I had saved almost every card my parents had sent me over the years. I found it and it will never be hard to find again because of the process of letting go of the volume! I don’t need every letter to be reminded how much my parents loved me!
I think this Walt Whitman quote says it well! Enjoying the moment we are in instead of holding tight to times that have passed ultimately leads to a more satisfying life! I think one of the other interesting things that looking at old letters brings up is where we were and who we were emotionally at any given point in time. I would like to think I have grown by leaps and bounds from who I was when I was younger and that seems to be reflected in these letters. Some have been super easy to let go of because those relationships didn’t support that growth. I want to keep growing and stretching…that’s what this Australian adventure is about really!
One of the things we have been talking about doing for years is getting our old movies digitized. Finally, we did it! We shipped this huge volume of old movies of my childhood and the girls to Southtree and now we have them both in the cloud and on a hard drive. So happy to have the extra space in storage that boxes of these would have taken up! We had hoped to do something similar with photos but time has run out and that will have to be saved for a future date but the freedom of going digital is inspiring us to not wait too long to get it done! Maybe on our first trip back to Florida we will get the photos sent off and digitized!
I love the illustrations of artist Aimee Sicuro! I often encourage my feng shui clients to add more artwork to their home that supports the direction they want to head in their life. I know for all four of us, art inspires us. This simply beautiful illustration has been a supportive presence for me this week in my letting go process! While we are truly only taking what is needed to Australia initially (clothes and our animals), taking only what is needed for the future in a broader sense is also true.
Tomorrow marks three weeks since my accident and I want to say thank you again for all the comments and private messages you have sent my way! They have helped so much! I still have a way to go with my right arm and hand but am progressing and oh so very lucky to be healing so swiftly! Thanks again!
Today I received this text from Sylvia.
Ummm….one month? We are so not ready! While we are ready for the adventure, we have many of the major details still unresolved including the sale of my childhood home (if you know someone looking for a lovely home send them our way) and getting our Florida home ready for what is next here. We did make some progress on Friday by having a holiday rental management company come in and look over the space. Now, we wait for them to get the projected numbers back to us. In addition, we still have not quite figured out our living arrangements in Brisbane. We are taking only some clothes and our animals with us but finding furnished places is not so easy. Lawson has reached out to a relocation company to help us on that end! While Lawson has poured much energy into researching places to rent there, there is not much you can do until you are about a month out from needing the place. Suddenly we are closing in on that date! To say we are living in a state of limbo is an understatement! While this blog will someday take a more professional tone, currently it is all personal raw emotion as we go through this process in part to document this journey a bit and in part to say if we can do this, anyone can! And in saying anyone can do this, I mean follow their dream…not necessarily moving abroad. Follow yours!! As I have been working my way through old letters and other sentimental items, I have found over and over references by us all about our going to Australia someday going back many, many years. This is about following those inner nudges and seeing where they lead. This may be an epic failure….or not! We are hoping for not!
I cannot thank you all enough for your thoughts and prayers and kind gestures these past two weeks! I am healing nicely as you can see from this photo. My face and left arm are looking good, other than the loss of my eyebrows! Yep, burned straight off my face! They actually are growing back at a faster rate than I anticipated and truth be told they weren’t that fab a feature to begin with! As you can see in the photo my right hand and arm are healing faster now that I can allow it to get air a portion of the day. They are just super sensitive. As I work this week to try to accomplish a little by going through old paperwork and sentimental items, I realize there are so many reasons to be grateful! Just being able to use my arms again is such a gift! The human body’s potential to heal and regenerate is simply amazing! I couldn’t even look at my arm two weeks ago much less post a photo. It was that bad. I don’t know how Lawson changed my dressing without passing out. On another positive note, Sophie says it looks a bit like I got an expensive chemical peel on my face and some of the lines are diminished! I will take it!
More on going through all the sentimental things in our next post! Happy Tuesday!
A quick update to say thank you for the notes, texts, messages and kind gestures you have sent our way. We are grateful for the kindness extended to our family. I will eventually get around to responding to them all but for now this update before I fall asleep again! I have slept most of the past 11 days and my body is healing slower than I would like especially my right arm and hand. My left hand and face definitely look like they’ve been through an ordeal but it is my right arm that is the source of pain and the focus of Lawson’s concern and vigilant care. So, here’s what’s been going on.
It has been an extremely painful week and a half since the flash fire that burned me. It is absolutely the last thing we needed as the deadline for leaving for Australia nears. In spite of everything, I am so incredibly thankful. I could need plastic surgery. I could have lost my eye sight. And, the very worst…it could have been Eve instead of me. Let me back up a bit. I did something I should not have done. I was multitasking and distracted! I sprayed ScotchGuard in a poorly ventilated space – the bathtub. I usually have the door to our outdoor shower open for ventilation or spray things outside but for some reason I forgot on this occasion. I later went to clean that space so Eve could wash the dogs there. I almost asked her to do it. I almost exclusively use organic cleaning products so just forgot what I was dealing with. Never again! The fire happened so fast. All I truly remember is Eve’s terrifying screams and pain on my face and arms like I have never felt before. It was the scariest thing I have ever experienced! After that it is all a bit fuzzy. I was in shock and frightened. It frightened us all. Lawson raced me to get medical attention and well….it’s hard to remember past that. The thing I know though from the years where my parents were sick and my children were younger and I was constantly on the road in between my parents home and ours, juggling time with my children and time with my parents, is that when we have major life transitions, or trauma’s going on it is easy to not think straight. Accidents are far more likely to happen during times like these. While we work hard to practice mindfulness in our life, sometimes life can get overwhelming. This has been one of those times.
My beloved Lawson is the one to whom I owe my greatest thanks. He has been my nurse, lovingly changing my dressing, which I have to say would have me passing out if I had to do it myself, several times a day, bathing me and shouldering not only his load of the work toward this Aussie adventure but mine as well! One of the qualities I was looking for in a mate all those years ago was someone who I felt would be true. I think it is one of the most important traits anyone can possess. I also think it is incredibly rare. I pray everyday that our girls future husbands will have this quality! I believe they will because they will know what to look for because of their dad, just as I did thanks to my sweet papa! When there has been an accident and you are in pain, when the long term impact of an accident is unknown, when you face the possibility of being disfigured and you wonder how your mate will respond, being married to someone who is true is the most extraordinary of gifts! My Lawson is so true! I never, ever, ever take this for granted! A true soul is so hard to find but worth the time and wait it takes to find them! As e.e. cummings said…
Indeed you are all those things Lawson!
Now, back into hibernation to continue to heal! Loving thoughts to you all! Thanks for taking the time to read our blog and again, for your thoughts and prayers!
A very quick post to update you on Susan. This week has been a complete blur. I have had Susan on strict bed rest to facilitate healing from the burns she sustained last weekend. I have been changing and dressing her injuries several times a day. While we know things will work out just as this card Ms. Sylvia (whose birthday we mentioned in the previous post) gave Susan says, she is still in a tremendous amount of pain and has lost a week of work which she finds incredibly frustrating. Please keep praying and sending her healing energy! Watching your beloved in pain is just the worst!
This beautiful rose was also a gift from Sylvia and reminds us how beauty heals!
Thanks for your ongoing thoughts and prayers! May your weekend be full of beauty!
Today, one of our favorite people in the world celebrates her birthday! Today, is Ms. Sylvia’s birthday! Sylvia came into our life as a teacher at our girls school when we first moved here. She was an important mentor in guiding our Sophie through her high school years and has been lovingly teaching Eve this ninth grade year! She was already a dear friend before she moved into the carriage house behind our home eight months ago. Now she is family! We are already beginning to grieve the fact that she won’t be moving with us to Australia. If we could pack her in a bag, we would! We have requested being put in the queue behind her own children and grandchildren for visits!
Life is funny. It dips and turns in unexpected directions. When we moved here we thought it was for a school (and to restore the home we purchased). Sometimes, we make choices and changes that we think are for one thing and other things, better things emerge. While home schooling is not really our favorite method of schooling long term, I think we will all look back on this year of one on one attention with Ms, Sylvia as a remarkable turning point for Eve. We keep telling Eve all this one on one teaching is like being a celebrity’s kid! It’s like she has cool rock and roll parents who are on the road touring – except it’s not she reminds us! Ha! To have this much time getting to know another human being, is a remarkable gift very few people are afforded. Over these past months, we have logged many an hour of conversation. Sylvia has not only taught our girls, she has taught us! Pass the box of kleenex please!
These photos are from our birthday breakfast celebration this morning. Susan’s still on strict bed rest so was not able to join us but we sent her lots of fun photos and brought a doggie bag home for her! We treasure these moments together! I’m not sure how we got quite so lucky to have this time with Sylvia but we do know how very fortunate we are! Happy Birthday Sylvia! We all love you so very much! Now, start planning that first trip to Australia!
