So this is the week we say goodbye to our current life.
We live in a 3/4 bed end of terrace with a garage and a large garden. We have an extended kitchen and 2 living rooms. We also have a utility room, get us! Terry leaves the house at 7.15am every morning and drives his hour commute to work. I get Ethan up, take him to nursery for 8am and come home to work for the day. When 5.30pm arrives, I drive to pick Ethan up from Nursery to bring him home for a bath, bottle and bed. Terry arrives back home around 7pm, to say goodnight to Ethan and we then prepare dinner, watch some TV and go to bed. The next weekday arrives, and we repeat the day again.
We are office workers and this is the way it goes for most families who need to work to pay for their mortgage and bills. The weekends are fun, usually filled with seeing friends and family, but once Sunday afternoon arrives, we have to get prepared for the working week ahead and that dreaded, oh it’s Monday tomorrow feeling takes over us.
One day, whilst on maternity leave, I was sat looking at Ethan playing. He’s such a happy boy, full of smiles and laughter. I wondered what his future would be once maternity leave was up. As we don’t have any family close to home, nursery was the only choice. Now I could have looked for a part time role that would supplement Terry’s wage, and put Ethan into nursery part time. This would mean things would be tight and we would have no surplus budget for the fun things that cost money. We would have no budget to travel, thats for sure. Then I asked myself a question, do you want a life full of commutes, stress, bills and office work? Do you want to put Ethan into nursery and miss out on seeing him grow? Is this house really worth that?
And to me, the answer was no. We have never been the type of couple just to sit back and face reality for what it is. We are dreamers, storytellers, risk takers. So with that, Terry and I decided after my maternity was up, to travel. We decided to sell the house, buy a motorhome and travel Europe, all with no real plans as to what will follow next.
It’s hard to say goodbye to the life we have built over the last 2 years in Martingale Road. We’ve decorated, added and beautified our house to our tastes. Above all this was the house we brought Ethan home to once we left the hospital. It means something. Every morning I seem to wake up questioning our decision, until I look outside at all the houses packed tightly together, until I get in the car and drop Ethan off at nursery, until I wait for Terry to arrive home and kiss Ethan goodnight, that I realised I would like more that this. I’d like to see my family everyday.
So next Wednesday we hand the keys to our home to another family to enjoy. We will drive our motorhome away and I won’t look back. I will look forward to a future of the unknown, a future where we are going to make our dreams a reality, and spend everyday working and grafting together to give Ethan a happy and fulfilled life with us. That’s all parents want, is to see their children happy. In order to do that, you need to be happy parents, and this life isn’t fulfilling that criteria for us right now.
So after months of counting down the days, and preparing for the future, we are days away from saying goodbye to our current life, and hello to the future. Cheers to that!
Exciting! 🙂