Only For A Season

I'm horrible with blog titles.  I was always bad at story titles in school too.  I just want to say what I'm thinking/feeling without having to "name" it.  I always said I needed a muse for that part of the job...

Life is an endless journey of new beginnings, hardships, joy, sadness, humility, faith, hope, love... I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I'm just too optimistic about where I'd like to see us, or if I'm just completely not being realistic enough.  I don't want this to turn into an "oh, woe is me" kind of post because that's not how I'm feeling - although there is a plethora of feelings that I'm dealing with every day and not all of them are happy ones.

Over the past year and 4 months, our little family has experienced quite a few milestones.  We moved from our first home together as a married couple, where I was pregnant 7 of the 9 months... We moved into a completely new area in a rental that happened to be available exactly when we needed it, on a leap of faith.  We became a family of 3.  We learned how to balance our new lives as parents (something we still do daily) and have tried to be the best we can be for our son.  I began talking to my father again after over 4 years of not hearing from him.  We celebrated 6 years of marriage.  I ended a decade in my 20's and began a new one.  Our son celebrated his 1st year of life.  And now, here we are, facing another milestone...

The decision for me to be a stay at home mom was one we struggled with.  Not because we felt that it wasn't the right thing to do, but because Michael's income isn't consistent due to him being commission only and it was very scary to go from 2 incomes, to 1.  However, after me being to moved to a new school and knowing that I'd miss a lot of the beginning of the year, then moving to Flower Mound and being faced with a  long commute, we knew it was the right thing to do.  It didn't sit well with either of us that Liam would be raised by someone else, so we decided to make sacrifices.  I'm in no way saying that other parents don't make sacrifices and still have to work... I have no judgement here whatsoever.  I know that some people prefer to work to being home with their kids and I totally understand, again, no judgement.  I just know that this is what we chose, and what we preferred.

I'd be lying if I said that it hasn't been an endless financial struggle.  But I know that this is just for a season, and that no matter how tough times have been, I would't trade being more financially stable for witnessing our sons first smiles, laughs, rolls, crawls, and steps... I've loved every moment of being home with Liam and being able to play with him, read with him, and be his mommy.  It's by far the best job I've ever had!

Recently, Michael and I sat down and hashed it out over our finances.  While we have blessed enough to always have enough money to scrape by, we are sick of scraping by or being "comfortable" every few months.  We are pouring Michael's hard earned money into a rental that is getting us nowhere, and is eating our lunch with electric bills instead of being able to build up a savings account and a substantial down payment.  It makes no sense.  Yes, we absolutely love this area.  I could see this being somewhere we raised our family as is grows... somewhere where Liam learns to ride his bike and we go on family outtings and walks, and I love how safe it feels here.  How convenient everything is, how close we are to several "big" cities, yet we don't live in one.  And while there's nothing to say we can't come back here, it makes no sense right now for us to financially stay here.

So, we are packing up and moving to my mom's house.  While I've had my crying jags over leaving the house where we brought Liam home and have had soooo many milestones with him... I keep having to remind myself to get my emotions in check and focus on what this means for our future.  While it will be tight living quarters and not really "our own space"... We will be allowing ourselves to get back where we need to be and we will be in position to buy and move into our first home *hopefully* by our anniversary next June.  That's our goal.  Cutting out so many needless expenses will allow us to put the money where it needs to go and get us back on our feet rather than swim in endless circles upstream with a small leak in our boat.  It's been a hard decision because I hate to be losing our own space, I hate that we are leaving an area we love so incredibly much, I hate that we finally just brought over a ton of our stuff from storage and got it organized and now it's going right back into storage.... But when I stop and take a deep breath and remind myself why we are doing this, I realize all of those things are trivial and dumb because this is just for a season.  It's not forever.  It's a stepping stone that we are blessed to have in our path instead of continuing to struggle.

Will it be easy? No.  My mother's day out job is still in Grapevine, and Michael's mortgage job is still here in Flower Mound.  But, we have friends there in Fort Worth, my family is there, we will be surrounded by love and support in all angles and when we find a house - obviously not our dream house, not yet - we will have put us in a much better place for our future.  For us, for Liam, for any future child we are blessed with.

I've cried my tears.  Soon - well actually by the end of the month - we will be saying our goodbyes to our first home as a family of 3, and I'm sure there will be more tears.  I'll miss the memories we've made here, but there are a lot of memories yet to made elsewhere.  Please keep us in your prayers as we make this transition. I know it's for the best, and that God is teaching us yet another lesson...but it's still scary, and no matter how many times I tell myself that God is in control and I'm not, it still scares me.  Change freaks me out apparently no matter how old I get!

Liam will get to experience Halloween in basically two households as we transition, Thanksgiving all over the metroplex (that's nothing new), Christmas traditions as a 16 month old at my mother's house, the start of a New Year there, and who knows what else.  It's the memories that are important, not where they happen... right? Haha, this momma is still adjusting.  Like I said, this is only for a season.  :)  Just have to remember that, and that we are incredibly blessed for my mom to open her home to us while we get back on our feet; Liam is already so familiar with her house that hopefully this transition will be easy on him - the last I thing I want to do is disrupt his life more than necessary.

It's not the house that makes the home, it's who's in it with you.  :) <3 nbsp="nbsp" p="p">