Just Dreaming...

I have been feeling an itch lately.  The kind that makes me want to make a big change, to pack up the family and live somewhere different.

I love where we are.  I love the midwest, it's the only home I've really known.  I love that most of our family (minus my sister) is here.  I love that I have good friends here.  I love that it is comfortable and safe.  That it's not making me stretch in any way I don't want to.  I love that I pretty much know what to expect.  No big surprises.  Apparently I'm not big on surprises.

But I kind of wish I was a risk-taker.  An action-taker.  I wish that we had the kind of life where we could decide to be somewhere different and just go.  Before we had Hope we talked about living somewhere else for awhile.  Probably not permanently because we wanted to "end up" near our families, but we both loved to travel and wanted to be adventurers and explore and live in another part of the country, or even world.

Except that we never did.  And sometimes I wonder, even if Hope hadn't come so soon after we got married, if we ever really would have.  You see, I've always been a big dreamer, just never a big doer.  And I kind of wonder if we ever would've been brave enough to follow through on all our talk.

I always thought I was the daring one, but my sister is the one who lived in another country for a year, who moved to Boston without a job lined up, who now calls New York City home.  And I am the one living two hundred miles from where I grew up.

Most of the time I'm just fine with that.  But sometimes I'm not.

So lately I dream of picking up the family and leaving.  Of finding a condo near a beach, usually in Southern California or Florida, and spending my days embracing sand in our hair and in our home.  Or adventuring over to the English or Irish countryside, or finding an Italian or French villa, or even living in Vienna, and introducing the girls to another culture, another way of life.

I am longing for it, even though I know it won't happen.  Even if we could manage it financially (we can't).  I don't think we'd ever go through with it.  I just don't think I'm brave enough.  Because for all my speak of wanting to embrace a new adventure, I know the obstacles would probably be too much for me.  The struggles would be too hard.  The reality of uprooting the girls, our home, our life, would be too overwhelming.

I like safety and comfort and knowing.  But I dream of risk-taking and adventures and the unknown.

xoxo.
Christine