Creating a New Life One Step at a Time

Creating a new life doesn't happen overnight. It is a process of slow, incremental steps. I'm happy to share that I'm now two steps closer to where I want to be.

Yesterday I received some good news on two fronts. 

After a month and a half of interviews, discussions, and negotiations, I accepted a new position as an assistant editor with a company I'm really excited about. It's a fully remote position which means I can work anywhere I want to. This was an absolutely crucial step. My current job tethers me to Nebraska, and now I have the freedom to move wherever I want.

The second good bit of news? The rental property approve my application for my new apartment. My daughter and I will move next month. While I hate and despise moving, this is yet another necessary step. I'm super excited to decorate the new place - I'm going for English cottage style - and have been sorting and purging already. I develop emotional attachments to stuff and so I've been carting around childhood mementoes for years. While I don't want to get rid of all of it, I do need to pare it down to something more manageable, and perhaps use those items as decorations instead of just keeping them stuck in a box.

Good news on two fronts, yes - but they both come with mixed emotions. I've worked at my current job for ten years. I've developed very close relationships with my coworkers and I know those relationships will continue .But starting a new position is always fraught with anxiety and worry. It's a lot easier and safer to stay in our comfort zones, isn't it? But that's what creating a new life is all about - taking chances and moving out of our comfort zone.

The next month will be insane: starting a new job and moving to a new apartment. But the good news is I don't have to move all my stuff out at once. I'll move it a bit at a time and then have one Big Moving Day. This reduces my stress a great deal. 

Yes, Slick, I know I should be writing...

On Living Solo

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been doing a lot of deconstruction on patriarchy and decentering men, figuring out what is best for me, and growing and changing. I'm moving out of a shared space and will no longer be living with my partner. While I'm not living alone, per se, as my daughter is coming with me, I will not be living with a man. This was a hard decision but an absolutely critical one. I have discovered I do much better and am more me when I don't live with my partner. Society tells us otherwise, and encourages us to live under the same roof. But for some people, it's incredibly hard.

I found a great podcast called Solo: The Single Person's Guide to a Remarkable Life and listened to several episodes while making the drive home to western Nebraska yesterday. While I am technically not single (all of that is still up in the air), this podcast helped me to realize I definitely was not alone when it came to the desire to live alone. I enjoy having my own space and doing things my own way. Is it about control? Maybe. (Probably need to explore that in therapy!). Is it about having the freedom to truly be me? I'd say that's more on the money. I believe that finding a community of like-minded individuals is crucial. Even if I want to live alone, that doesn't mean I want to be alone and isolated from the world. I need relationships with other people; I think we all do. So I'm excited to join this community and find support, especially considering we live in a society that looks at you askance when you announce to them that yes, you are currently living with your boyfriend, but you've decided to move out and live on your own, and yes, you're still together, but you can't live together. People don't understand. It doesn't follow the rules or the norms, and when you break those norms, it upsets people.

I find all of this behavioral psychology and science rather fascinating. Peter McGraw, who hosts the Solo podcst, is an academic behavioral economist, and the research into these topics is interesting. 

I'm just doing a whole lot of learning right now! But I think learning and growing is paramount to living a good, healthy life. If we remain stagnant, we miss out on so many opportunities. Some people don't change, true, and it's a shame (my ex is one of those who will never change, learn from his mistakes, or try to live a better life, but that's a topic for another day).

I'm really excited by this new phase of my life. And yes, my writing will be a big part of it. I want to dedicate much more time to my writing, to reading, to living a purpose-filled life, to fulfilling my dreams!