The Mirror

We have a beautiful mirror, I use it to write cleverly crafted menus on for dinner parties and inspirational thoughts for life. It's pretty.

Since we've moved into our temporary home in Bend it's been sitting in the corner a bit forlorn and ignored. It dawned on me a couple weekends back that the quote that was still on it, had been there for too long. The last few months my life, our life, our path has been changed & reordered to a state of complete and utter lost.

I don't expect you to understand the words of my poem, there are times that the musings of my heart are too deep to grasp. I wrote this poem in response to that mirror, understanding when I wrote it that a paradigm shift had taken place in our lives and extreme refocus was about to happen.

The truth is, things have been hard, quite hard. As a result there has been some serious cultivating going on in both Bill & I's soul.

"When I wrote it, we'd come to a place.
A place that came from a time of trial, testing, pain and regret.

We've got to move forward, move on, move away and try;
Try so hard to find a life, finally, find a life that we love.

We had had it, those years; all of them they were ours, him working so hard to provide, to love us, he did it so well. He's so so good. Then they left, God graciously gave them the lives we'd prayed for them for so many years. And if He hadn't, we had the resources to provide, we could take care of them.

So we had thought.

The track, the path, the stones; they seemed set, laid in a place were it was okay, we could move on.

That trial, it was a hard one. Our faith together was rocked so hard, we changed, she changed, she cussed so much more, her grace it grew so less, who was this woman? So long filled with patience, beauty and love, a heart that gives, she grew cold and lost.

She watched him be used, and then grow cold and lost just as she had become. The only hope it seemed was flee, start over, find warmth and try again. Find that life; a life designed, that they would love.

We sought, we prayed, we dreamed, we wished, we found, we dreamed, we leapt, we plunged.

Then it crashed, everything around them, the bursts of the fourth were watched with tears. Where is life going, what have we done, what do we do?

The beginning of the lost, the doubt, the questions, the fear, the trials. They come in, they envelope, they consume and overtake. They go on, too long, too long for the two to bear.

There's this, there is that and then what would we do. Oh my, my my my. What is this, what is that, what are we doing?

This life, the one we are designing and attempting to dream, so wanting to love, just  last year; 'tis the life that we loathed.

Dear God, for your help I do pray."

What the mirror had said, "And One Day They Decided, to Design a Life that They Love."

The poem was my understanding and acceptance of what that would be. The truth is Oregon is staying our home, we have chosen to embrace, plant our life, be thankful for and love the place that the Good Lord has chosen to place us. We pray that in our weakness his strength will be revealed.

The mirror; it's moving to Portland with Laura.

the time has come...

Bill and I have been on such a quest for so long about what to do with our life.

We've found raising a family the most wonderful part of our lives thus far. When you do this for so long and make it your priority, as it gradually ends you can't help but wonder, "was that what our life was about?"

Not that parenting ends, of course it doesn't. We watch our children grow into the most wonderful young adults and become families of their own, our life is so rich in this. Our main desire in life is to spend time with our adult children and theirs'.

As the children have left the nest, we have found ourselves a bit lost with what to do with our time and life. We found living in the middle of nowhere i.e. Sisters to be incredibly filled with solitude, so we sold our beautiful family home and moved to Bend. We always new it was a temporary fix to what would someday be a move from Central Oregon.

Yes it's a beautiful place to live, the simpler paced life is quite wonderful and it's country that is surrounded with the beauty of creation. It's a fantastic place to live if:

you ski
you snowmobile
you hike
you mountain climb
you mountain bike
you fly fish
you love extreme outdoor sports
you desire to drive a subaru
your fashion sense includes snow pants, keen shoes and jeans for dress up
you love craft beer
you enjoy cold weather most of the time

Yes Bend, it's the Good Life, even the Washington Post says so.

As the bumper sticker claims, "Your vacation is our life." Um not me, I would never go anyplace like this on vacation and it's not because I live here, its because these are the last things I'd like to spend my time doing.

And this my friends is where the rub lies. I have tons of free time and I have the most difficult time figuring out what to do with it, honestly I find it incredibly boring here. I do apologize, I know this is a very well loved community and I do understand that. It's simply not a lifestyle we enjoy at all.

we love the theater
we love museums
we love art
we love fine dining
we love riding bikes leisurely
we love being close enough to city life to take it in often
we love basking in the warm sun
we love hot weather

Albiet Bend does provide some of these on a very small scale, not enough to convince us living here is what we want for the rest the time we get to experience the life we've been given.

It's been two years now that we've researched where we'd like to relocate to. I admit we have been very picky knowing the enormity of this decision and it's nothing we have taken lightly at all. It's been interesting to go through the process and have others inform us of the things we need to be considering in this decision. I suppose that's the whole reason I feel the need to compose this blog, me fearing what others will think. bah That said, we've considered a lot and our final decision has been made taking a magnitude of things into consideration. We even seriously thought about buying a second home and living in two places simply to please people that think we are nuts for leaving. We don't have that kind of money and since we are ready to permanently move on from Central Oregon it seems a bit ridiculous.

In the end, we are making this decision for us. Makes sense right? We are the ones doing this and we pretty much know ourselves better than anyone else.

The many places we have considered relocating to are:
Portland
Sacramento
Granite Bay
Marin County
Santa Rosa
Napa
San Francisco
Pleasanton
Modesto
Century City
Santa Monica
Palos Verdes
San Diego
Oceanside
La Quinta
Rancho Mirage
Indian Wells
Scottsdale

Yes we have researched, visited (almost all) and seriously considered each of these places for various reasons. Yep, it's been exhausting and an emotionally challenging two years.

That said, we made our decision in June (when I began composing this post) and plopped a hunk of money down on what we think is a great area for us, a decent home for us, the simple lifestyle we prefer yet close enough to cities that we enjoy and warm almost all of the time; super warm.

Since the week we made the decision our life has been in complete turmoil, filled with one challenge after another, along with tremendous responsibilities BUT topped with a huge helping of sweetness due to the perfect four days we spent enjoying family, friends and Michael & Claire's beautiful wedding.

We have questioned our decision numerous times but knew we had no choice but to move forward, we had bought a house and sold our house (the day we listed it, not what we expected at all.) We choose to work through the challenges and continue forward since turning back seemed quite impossible!

So here we are ending the summer, hoping life calms to a somewhat reasonable pace and yes relocating  late next Spring to Rancho Mirage California. Today we say goodbye to Celilo, the uber cool house with the awesome view and a kitchen only Wil could do justice to. We enjoyed having it for our home the few years that we did.

We say hello to our winter cottage, it's cozy and sweet in a lovely neighborhood that we hope to enjoy these next few months.

Then next year we move on to Via Noela, what began a desolate dusty lot with a fantastic mountain view. 

It's growing and changing day by day and one day will be where we plant our lives for the next chapter. 

Via Noela today.

So there you go, we are coming out in a sense. We intended to do so much earlier but life began heading at the speed of a locomotive and we had not the time, energy or gumption to share our story.

We know we are nuts we also know we are bold. Change is a lot of work yet it's something we enjoy so we are doing this. It may not be forever, maybe we will melt, we shall see. For now, those of you who need to escape winter for a time, we welcome you to visit. We will have a tiny Guest Casita to keep you and your's and our planned backyard pool should be quite a splash. Maybe our kids will even come & visit!

sharing

There are times I wish I could reach through the computer and share insight, a glimpse into the future and a large dose of hope to those dealing with hard things.

My story of old is not super pretty and not one I am proud of at all, although I am thankful. Thankful to be in the future from it and to see so much good out of it.

I am one of 'those' women, I brought an end to my very young marriage so many years ago. I did this in shame and brought a ton of pain to the man who was then my husband and his family. I also entered my two very young children into a life of being shared.

The early days were hard, there was a lot of hate and mis-trust. My new and beloved husband  Bill knew that peace was what was needed and did all he could in his power to keep it. His goal was protecting me from pain and anger and his heart and attitude rubbed off on me. Even when I didn't feel like showing respect, he insured me that showing it would pay off, for all.

Fast forward to years of sharing graduations, weddings and now grandchildren. The life of my ex and I continues as we witness our wonderful family grow. I am so thankful that we learned in the early years that the fight is not what it's about, it's about loving, raising, encouraging, teaching, enpowering, loving, enjoying, believing in, loving... our shared children.

I think I simply want to say, if you are in the fight I am sorry and I understand. I encourage you to find peace and respect for the other parent of the children you share. You have years and years together, they will never fully be out of your life.

In our situation I found that giving up my pride, my selfishness and truly humbling myself worked out not only for my advantage but for the advantage of my children.

Today when we are at a family event with my ex, his wife, his other children; we sincerely love and enjoy them. The hugs, the laughter and friendship is good and true. We never look back at the pain, always at the joy and love we share.

For this I am eternally grateful. I could've never accomplished this without my amazing husband Bill by my side and my most gracious heavenly father who's ways are simply the best.

For my dear friends dealing with the fight, the pain, the anger; I lovingly encourage you: Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up in due time. It is worth it.

I am so thankful we learned to share so long ago, the reward has been the richest of blessings. Our wee Penny with her Poppa & his crazy camel, Nona, Pappa Bear and Memaw, sweetness to the soul.