I'm feeling down and discouraged today. I try to keep this blog positive for the most part but today I'm not feeling it. I started this blog a year ago tomorrow with the goal of recording our search for our farm, moving to our farm and our successes and failures getting everything set up and going. A year later, nothing has changed. I'm still in this suburban neighborhood where I can feel the neighbors closing in on me. I literally feel like I'm suffocating!
I'm usually able to stay positive, staying focused on my goals and trying to take a step everyday to get closer to those goals. I've been focused on learning everything I can now before we get to the farm so I can then focus on getting the animals set up and going. If all the other stuff is already established I won't have to think of any of that. But I feel like I'm running out of things I can do and learn here. I'm beyond ready for the next step!
I think the reason I'm feeling particularly down today is because one of my closest friends moved yesterday. Back in April she was talking to me about how unhappy her husband was at his job but that he didn't have any other options in this area. I suggested they might want to consider moving to another area. At first she was opposed to the idea but after talking to her husband more she encouraged him to send out resumes. Within a few months he had a job in Michigan and had moved out there to get started and settled in. My friend and the kids stayed behind to sell the house and get everything packed. They moved for good yesterday. I'm happy for them but it also upsets me. I've been wanting to move for almost 2 years and my friend who didn't want to move at all has moved in 8 months and I'm still here with no move in sight. We are no closer to a move than we were a year ago.
It also doesn't help that over the past few months I've been feeling a sense of urgency to get to our farm and get things going. I feel like the future is looming over me and I'm not ready for it. I've been having dreams almost nightly about not being ready for things. I don't think we can survive what I believe is coming in this house. We don't even have a fireplace that we can actually use!
I've been focused on staying positive and being thankful for what we have now. I've been trying to live life as if we already have our farm and trying to keep my thoughts focused on my dream. I've been trying to bring the Law of Attraction into play. But I have to admit it has been getting harder and harder as time goes on. It is very hard to be focused on a goal that you have no control over.
So tomorrow I will be back to focusing on the positive and being thankful and all that, but for today I'm going to let myself feel down.
Edited to add: I'm feeling a little better already. My mostly outside cat came in this morning because it is really cold out and she is lying on the floor playing with a toy mouse. I haven't seen her play in over a year! Something about going outside seems to take the playfulness out of a cat. So it is a joy to see her playing!
18 comments:
Christy,
I think we all feel helpless and hopeless at times. And we're all wanting to do more, wanting to be further along.
May I ask, what *is* keeping you from moving?
I think my husband felt the way you do for a couple of years before I was ready to make the leap to move. But I did come around, and now we live in a wonderful place. We rent our house, and we don't have enough room for farm animals. But we have a local farming economy, and our neighbors have animals. And, most importantly, we have room for a big garden.
It will come, the time will come for you to move.
Since you have done so many other things to prepare, maybe you could focus on saving money for a new place? Now is probably not the best time to buy a house anyway, so maybe you could be saving now to buy a house when the market plateaus down the line?
Ron - Thanks for understanding, I know you've been there. It is just hard having no idea when it might happen. Even if it was another year away if I just knew that I could plan and live with that. And the time has given me the chance to learn and plan more, but it has been over a year now!
Melinda - We are waiting for a transfer with my husband's company. He put in for the transfer over a year ago and we've heard nothing. So far he has been unwilling to consider looking at other companies so we are just waiting for them to come through with the transfer.
We own a house now so we will be selling this one and buying another so it really doesn't matter what the market is doing. If house prices are up we make more on this house, if prices are down we pay less for the new house. We really don't need to save money to get a new place, so it is just a waiting game.
Thanks for the comment.
Christy,
Sending hugs your way. It's really draining to see your goal, to feel it and long for it, and be waiting much longer for it than you ever imagined. I've got no advice, but understanding galore! Things are moving backwards for us in some aspects in our lives, so I really feel your frustration.
I'll light some candles for your family that movement will occur for you, that the transfer will come to be, or another job will present it's self to your husband.
Things are coming, the waiting sucks though, doesn't it?
I felt like I could have written this post a couple of years ago. We even found "the" house - solar passive with a woodstove on 11 acres out in the country with a barn and right behind riding stables. There was even a pasture already laid out. It just needed fencing. We put an offer on it, but had to back out when we found issues with the water supply and the septic system and weren't willing to compromise.
It was hard to come back to our quarter acre in the suburbs and make our life here fit what my mind told me we needed, but (other than the coveted goats), we're making it work.
I've been reading your blog for a while now, and I know you've mentioned some restricting homeowners association rules that have prevented you from having what you want. Are those things you can tweak? Can you fight them?
Can you put an insert in your fireplace to make it work?
It's hard to be on this end of things and to be seeing what's happening and know that things need to be done in preparation for what's to come and feel like you're stuck. I know.
That said, you are doing amazing things, and with some creativity, you can definitely get around those roadblocks. It took me a long time to let go of the 11 acres in the country, but once I did, I started thinking outside the box, and trying to find ways to make my reality my dream, rather than the other way around.
Christy-how frustrating! Being like you, I'm a planner and I hate waiting for things beyond my control. It makes me worry too much (and like you, have anxiety dreams.) I think you're doing the best you possibly can under the circumstances. And I hope writng about it and allowing yourself to feel a little crummy about it has helped some. *hugs* xoxo
(((Hugs))) Don't let discouragement lead to loss of hope. You WILL achieve your goals.
You are allowed to feel down and discouraged. I hope it doesn't last too long though...or keep you from seeing all the WONDERFUL things you've done already.
A self affirmation step - every day you should reread that post of the steps you've taken this past year to be more simple and sustainable. Do you know how incredible what you've accomplished is?! Incredible, and I mean it.
Is your husband's company so awesome he is unwilling to look elsewhere for a job? if not, while he waits for a transfer, he could look for another job. if and when his job does come through, he may have a counter offer with which to leverage a better transition. OR he might find a job even BETTER than what he has now.
i'm an optimist at heart, so I'll offer you this one cheesy, annoying consolation of faith and hope - if you are not living your dream yet, there must be some thing bigger and more beautiful waiting for you than you've even dreamed for yourself.
It's winter...it's dark and cold...maybe do something just for you today or soon.
Knitmoka - Thank you for the understanding and the offer to light candles for us. I really appreciate it.
Wendy - That must have been so hard! You are a better person than me, I'm not sure I could have gone back to the suburban house and made it work. I could try to fight some of the restrictions here, but since we are and have been planning on moving, I haven't wanted to bother. Maybe I will bother in case we are here longer. Unfortunately our fireplace is totally decorative, it doesn't even have a chimney!
Farm mom and Deanne - I feel better today. It really helped to just give myself a day to feel sad and be grumpy about it. I try so hard to keep my spirits up and keep moving forward but sometimes I just get tired and need to give myself a break.
Errika - Thanks for the encouragement and reminder to look back at what I have done when I'm feeling discouraged. I've been trying to get my husband to look at another company for years, but he is very resistant. I'm not sure why, his company isn't that great. He said if he hasn't heard anything about a transfer by April he will start looking at other companies. I don't know why we have to wait until April but at least he is starting to be willing to look elsewhere.
I keep telling myself that there is a reason it is taking so long. That better things are coming and it is just taking time. I have to or I'd be beyond depressed. Most of the time I am hopeful and stay focused but every once in awhile it gets to be too much.
Oh Christy, I hear you and feel your pain. We are in a similar boat although finally, finally we are in the process of taking the first step towards the possibility of finding our own plot o' land. Many factors are out of our control but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I do not want to be where I am now by the end of this year. No way, no how. Like you, I don't think we could survive here. Well, we could in terms of food and heat, but I'm not sure about water or our neighborhood.
Chile - I know if anyone understands it is you! I'm excited you guys are starting the process. I agree with you about being out of here by the end of the year. I really wanted to be out of here by the end of 2007 :(
Christy -
I'm glad you're feeling better now. Over the past year when Tim and I got to points where we couldn't stand the waiting and longing any more we took a field day. We just looked up a farm that was doing anything remotely like what we dreamed of, called them, and asked if we could visit. We drove 4 hours one day and back again just to visit a farm that had pigs we were considering raising! These trips always inspired me again by reminding me that the wait is worth it. And all of the farmers we've talked to have been very welcoming and understanding.
Hang in there! No Really Hang in there! I have been wanting to move to the country for 10 years. Just did not know how I was going to make it happen. I finally read "Laws of Attraction" and "The Secret" and then bought them on CD and listened to at work and within a year we were on our new 3 acre homestead in the country. It took 6 months once we were approved for a low amount loan on a repo mobile home for our property that was paid off. Not only did it finally happen but my husbands brother and my sister also were part of the process in making it happen as they both knew how much we wanted it, becoming part of the process of laws of attraction. It will happen for you. Never Never have any doubt.
I believe so much in the mentioned practicing the laws of attraction that we moved without having jobs and both my husband and I said out loud which jobs we wanted and focused on that and we both got the jobs we wanted.
Liz - I've been going to farm conferences and that has really helped. I went to one today and made a few contacts with farms I'm going to visit in the next few months. I need to get back in touch with the woman near here that has sheep to see if I can help out again.
Barbara - Thanks for the encouragement! I've been trying to use the law of attraction, I'm just not sure I'm very good at it! LOL. Seriously, I am using it and know it will work for me.
Keep on envisioning what you really desire and it will happen.
We believe in The Secret "Law of Attraction" and it worked for us, even after 3 loong years of suffering and living hand-to-mouth.
We knew what we wanted and had no idea when and how it was going to happen, but when the opportunity finally arose, we grabbed it and ddin't look back or spend too much time questioningwhy it was finally happening.
We finally have our acreage in the country, well actually in the mountains. But like you we are just finally relieved not to be living side-by-side in ticky-tacky houses in the burbs (where chickens are not even allowed to live. The shame!)
Is life perfect, even here?
Nah. We still don't live on solar power and off-grid. We still don't have a wood stove, and we don't have miles of acreage.
Our neighbors wouldn't be happy if we decided to have pigs or lots of farm animals.
But we do have chickens and some llamas. And we plan to get some goats, an alapca and a horse and pony.
Our kids finally have room to run and play in nature, on grass and dirt...not asphalt and concrete.
And best of all, I never want to leave home to drive into the city. Don't miss it at all.
Don't give up hope. And don't expect all of your wishes to happen at once. If they do, great!
But it's ok,if it happens in stages, and if you can't check off all of your wish lists.
I'm thinking positive thoughts and dreams achieved for you in 2008!
Like many others, I totally know what it's like to be waiting for your life plans to become your actual life. I still have a lot more planning to do, but even if I didn't I'd still hate the waiting. I feel the need to get out to our bit of land deep inside of me. I feel my soul NEEDS it. That might sound silly, but it's the truth. But alas, wait we must - and I sure don't want to waste the life I'm having in the meantime. When the time comes, though, it will most certainly be worth the long wait - as I'm sure you know!!
Twinville - Congratulations on getting your farm. I know it will happen for me too. I just need to keep up the faith.
Segolily- It doesn't sound silly at all. I feel the same way. When I drive past farms my soul aches.
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