After being in Austin for 3 weeks now, I can say that moving here was a huge leap of faith but one that is paying off already. I am totally enamored with the beauty of the area in which we are blessed to live. The choices of what to do, where to go and what to see seem endless with hiking trails and water falls and natural pools and caves and wildflowers, eclectic little towns and so many restaurants we could eat at a different one every day and not even scratch the surface of that there is here. From the rolling hills to the south and west of my RV window to the pasture to the east with huge longhorn cattle grazing I am in constant awe of how amazing it is to be here.
It wasn’t without some trepidation and a lot of soul searching that we made this leap of faith though. Sometimes it is super difficult to get out of our comfort zone and try something new. Some people spend their lifetime wishing they could be doing something different with their lives. Or living somewhere different. There are always a multitude of reasons to stay right where you are at. Change is uncomfortable sometimes. If you simply dream and never act on your desires, you can’t fail. But you can’t realize the satisfaction and thrill of going for something you want and having it come to pass either.
Giving up the “norm” and moving into an RV was a pretty scary venture for me. Had it not been for Joe, who had made that leap and was genuinely one of the happiest people I knew without all the debt and possessions to tie him down, I wouldn’t have experienced it. In fact, I can remember years ago one of my friend’s sister and her husband had sold their home and were living in an RV on a piece of land and I thought “they are crazy”..Why would you give up all that space and the pool and the 3 car garage and the granite countertops if you didn’t have to for financial reasons. I admit I thought they were rednecks to the nth degree to do something like that. It was simply not fathomable to me that I would ever desire or enjoy that lifestyle. I remember saying “I would never do something like that”. And now the old adage about never saying never because you will find yourself doing that very thing comes to pass.
We were at the bank the other day in Lakeway, which is a community that would be considered the Orange County of the area. The CSR asked us about our address and when we told her and said lot 1 she asked how long before we were able to move in. I said, oh we already live there. We had the 5th wheel moved several weeks ago. She thought that we were building on a lot somewhere in town. Never occurred to her that people actually lived in an RV. Kinda like me a few years ago. When I said we lived in the RV she asked where our real home was, thinking that the RV was just something we were traveling in. The RV is our home I said and she looked stunned. Then she asked where we usually traveled to and I told her no where which really caused her mouth to drop. If I had said we were living in a tent it wouldn’t have brought much different reaction I suspect. I’m sure that she felt sorry for us and our social status went down a couple of notches but ironically, I felt sorry for her.
A friend had a post today on his facebook page that said “You can’t always wait for the perfect time. Sometimes you have to dare to do it because life is too short to wonder what could’ve been.
Sometimes you are forced to do things, re-evaluate your life, and make some drastic changes. When Joe and I were discussing Austin and moving away from Oklahoma where he had been his entire life and I had been most of mine, I remember something that someone I know used to say that nothing in life was permanent except death. That thought propelled me to say “lets do it” lets take a chance and I got on line and applied for what would ultimately become my new job in my new city and a fresh start. Now I look at the situation we are in and I see God’s hand and perfect timing because truly this has been a transition that has gone remarkably well and one in which Joe and I continually smile in amazement at how happy we are and how good it feels to be in the place you know in your heart you are meant to be.
I now have the opportunity to be around family that I only got to see a few times a year. And in my brother’s case rarely. When Jimmy and Jackson came by last Sunday to visit it was a rare treat. Having lunch on Sundays with Chris and Juliet is something I start looking forward to the minute they leave. I have only tapped the surface of the places to see, things to do and people to meet. I love my new co-workers, a great group of people who have hearts of gold. My blood sugar readings have been under 200 (a huge thing for me) since I got here. It’s amazing what happiness can do for the soul and the physical body.
In a couple of weeks we will return to Oklahoma to celebrate my niece Jordan’s graduation from OSU. I will see the rest of my family and I can’t wait. I’ll get to see Andy and Liz and we’ll hope to see Joe’s sister and husband while we are there. And then we return, return to a place where we wake up each morning and say “how on earth did we do that?” in regard to making the decision one day to “go for it” and 3 weeks later be settled and happy in our new place.
Sometimes you just have to dig deep and figure out what it is you want and what it is that is holding you back from taking that leap of faith. Life on the sidelines is not much of a life. Sometimes you have to just dive in, not stick a toe in to test the water.
When I taught 6th grade Sunday School years ago (if you can call playing Bible hangman every week teaching..lol) I bought some of those little parachute men from a bubble gum type machine and one Sunday we talked about God being there all the time, to catch you when you fall, to bring you back to level ground. We went up on the roof (it was safe, really—a flat roof right outside the classroom with window access) and we threw our parachute men off the roof to watch them free fall for a minute then float gently to the ground below. Taking a leap of faith I told them.
Happy landings everyone. L
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