I consider myself a fairly indecisive person. I am always the last to order when I go out to eat. When I go grocery shopping I pick up and put down products multiple times before putting anything in my cart. So, when I came to making the biggest decision of my life, one could imagine it did not sit well with me.
When I became pregnant with my second daughter I wanted nothing more than to figure out a way to be a stay at home mom with both of my girls. Without explaining the details of the logistics or the financials, my husband and I came to the difficult decision to uproot our family and move to Green Bay. The chain of events played out like this… 1) Obtain job transfer, 2) Stage and prepare house for sale, 3) List house on a Thursday, 4) Sell house on Monday, 5) Have baby one week later, 6) Pack house, 7) Quit job of seven years, 8) Move in with in-laws and stay for 2.5 months 9) Close on new house and move in. Phew, I am so glad that stage of this change is over. But, I continued to question whether we made the right choice long after the physical move took place.
The Guide
I realized through this experience is that it’s not the act of making the decision that is difficult — we knew what we needed to do for our family. However, it is fear of the unknown that is the difficult part. That is where my self-taught guide comes in. These are the principles that have helped me get through the past few months of uncertainty and change.
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Have faith
Now I don’t necessarily mean faith in the religious sense (although I asked God every day to help me make the right decision). Faith, by definition, is having complete trust or confidence in someone or something. For me this meant that I had to have faith in the real estate process. When our home stager told me that I needed to completely empty out our front closet and leave five wooden hangers and a single basket I had to have faith. I had to have faith in myself and in my husband that we made the right decision and all would work out in the end.
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Lean on others (and each other)
During this process we were blessed with friends and family who were more than willing to lend a helping hand through the physical moving process. We will be forever grateful for their help. I also sought out others who had to make a similar decision. I was given reassurance by so many that I would never regret taking this opportunity to stay home with my girls, even if it meant undertaking this big change.
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See the light
Yes, I have had my doubts about our decision. But, there have been so many glimmers of light that have shown me that we made the right decision. For instance, every time my three year old unpacked one of her toys she would exclaim, “Isn’t it great we got all my toys back?” Or, when I noticed our new house has three perfect climbing trees similar to those when I was young. There have been so many positives that have overpowered my worries.
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Go back to the start
On more than one occasion I have said to myself (and sometimes to my husband), “What did we do?” To talk myself out of this thought I have had to go back to the start and remind myself of why we made this decision in the first place. Cue the smiley faces of my girls scrolling across my brain. This whole change has been for them. That brings me to my next bullet…
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Talk it over
As soon as the official decision was made to move we shared the basics of the plan with my three year old. We hyped up living with grandma and grandpa, we discussed that her toys would be going into storage but she would get them back in our new house, and we talked about the new friends she would make. This doesn’t mean that she hasn’t felt sadness or fear. In fact, I have encouraged her to share those emotions with me to let her know that it’s okay to feel that way.
Ready for her new preschool at her new house!
I’m sure this is just one of many major decisions that I will have to make in my adult life. I can only hope that my husband and I can continue to make the right decision for our family. I’m sure that many of you out there have had to make similar decisions — how did you deal with the uncertainty that came along with the decision?
