Letting go frees you to embrace something new
As I sit here this morning, no longer a motorhome owner, I feel a familiar feeling of being in an in-between time.
I've experienced several of those times in recent years. My husband and I left our traditional jobs and sold our house in 2015. As we were passing papers in the lawyer's office that day in May, our cat waited in our car, which was packed with everything we owned except for what was left in a 5x10 storage unit. We knew we were headed to Florida to buy a motorhome to live in, but we didn't know how long it would take to find what we wanted.
That in-between time (between homes, in our case) was the first time I had experienced leaping into the unknown without a clear plan. It was a strange mix of joy and relief to have let go of a life that no longer worked for us and anticipation and uncertainty about what was to come. After just a few weeks, we found a motorhome we loved and lived in it for six months, traveling around the country, having experiences of a lifetime that we could never have had otherwise.
When we decided to come back to find a home base in New England, we were faced with another in-between time. It was late November and winter was closing in, so living in the motorhome was not an option. That in-between time was filled with more uncertainty than joy, but we felt confident we could find an apartment for the winter that would serve us well as a temporary home. We lived in a motel for two weeks as we looked for something that felt right and ended up renting a winterized cabin in a campground. It was the most peaceful winter I've ever had and the experience was so much better than I could have imagined. As the winter came to an end, we decided to look for a house to buy and within a couple of months, before the winter rental was over, we bought our new house.
As we settled into the new house and I started my website design business, we realized that traveling in a motorhome was not something we would be doing again in the near future. The motorhome sat for many months before we came to the reluctant conclusion that it was time to let it go. The decision was tinged with sadness about letting go of the vehicle that had been our happy home on the road and infused with hopefulness that the sale would help us to fund other adventures that we haven't articulated yet. So, here we are, at another in-between time, as we sit in this open time in between life adventures.
We know several friends who are also experiencing their own in-between times, as they let go of places and projects that have long held their attention to make room for something new. Whether the in-between time is voluntary or involuntary — retiring or losing a job, going through a divorce, deciding to move, closing a business, or abandoning an unfinished project — the in-between time can feel a bit empty and unfamiliar. I can tell you from experience though that when you let go of something that no longer serves you and use the in-between time to relax, dream, and follow your heart, the freedom and spaciousness of that time will allow something better to come into your life.
