8 years ago I started to feel the pull to move from the condo that I had owned for 18 years.  I didn’t have a great ‘reason’ except that I knew in my heart that it was time.   

I thought it was maybe because I needed to be closer to my parents.  My dad’s health was declining and I wanted to be more help.  

I thought maybe it was because I needed to be more available to a couple siblings.  They were both going through some unique struggles.  

I thought maybe it was because my two sweet dogs needed a little yard to run around in.  They were leash dogs and I didn’t want them to have to be.

I was wrong. 

Turns out it was because I needed to show myself I could do a hard thing.

Living in my same neighborhood and my same church community and my same building that I had been for SO many years meant that I was stagnant in some areas I needed not to be. 

So I started looking.

My sister and I were at the hospital with my mom visiting my dad on a Sunday afternoon.  My sister had just heard that a builder we liked was building homes in an area I had never ever considered.  We looked it up online and saw that there was a brand new build – a “quick move-in” home – currently for sale.  

It was $95,000 above what I had told myself I could afford so I discounted it immediately, but…. we decided to go see it anyway.  (You know where this is going, right?)

There is no explanation for the fact that the garage of that brand new and empty house was open on a Sunday afternoon but it was – and the door into the house from the garage was unlocked.  We went in.  

Big mistake. 

I loved it. 

So much. 

But it was way too expensive and way too new and way too beyond my wildest dreams. 

So I went back home to my sweet condo and my sweet dogs and my sweet life.  

Except that I couldn’t get that house out of my head.  

I drove straight there after school the next day.  (I got permission and a key this time.)  

And, not to get too woo woo, but when I walked in – through the front door – I immediately had this overwhelming feeling that this house was mine.  I knew it in my bones. 

And, to make a long story short, they dropped the house $15,000 and I got qualified and they gave me a month to sell my place and it sold in two weeks (that’s a good story, too).  

But the point of this story happened a few weeks later.  

I was driving from school to do a walk-through at the new house before I closed on it.  I had just found out that the lender had forgotten to add the mortgage insurance to my payment estimate.  A payment that already felt like such a stretch for my single gal school teacher salary suddenly felt like a mountain that was too big to climb.  I was a little panicked. 

I called my oldest sister.  I still remember where I was on the freeway.  I cried to her about how it wasn’t going to work and I couldn’t afford it and what was I doing???  Or some version of that melt-down.  

And this is what she said.  “You had the definite feeling that this is the right house for you, didn’t you?”  

I tearfully said “yes.”

“Well here’s the thing,” she continued. “Just because it’s right, doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.”

Boom.  I knew she had a good point.  I said something to the effect of “Well, I guess I can eat rice and beans for a year!”  

To which she replied, “And what a beautiful house to eat rice and beans in.”

That talk changed everything. 

I bought that house.  I LOVED that house.  I worked an extra job and scrimped and saved and created the next chapter of my life in that house.  I baked and baked and baked in that house.  I adored my neighbors in that house.  I started dating Darren in that house.  

And I sold that house when moving south with the man I was marrying was the next very right and very hard thing to do.  

I talked to a current client of mine today who is making a big change in her life – like BIG.  She said “I feel like it’s the right thing to do but I have so many doubts about whether I can do it.”  I offered her the statement Marilee had given to me…… “It might be possible that just because it’s right, doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.”  

And that hard part?  That’s the part that will change everything. 

I can’t wait to hear about the hard parts that are changing everything for you.  And if you need a nudge in figuring it all out, I’m here to help.