You Made Your Choice

The aftermath of a decision made and the stuff no one talks about

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I’ve been waking in the middle of the night for quite some time now.

I can get to sleep just fine, and I easily fall into a deep slumber, but somewhere around 1.30am my mind sets its own alarm and wakes me for some midnight stress thinking.

You know the kind?

Where you think about everything that’s stressing you out and worrying you, and you try to think of every possible way you can solve every single problem you have in your life right now? Yeah. That.

Much of my thinking lately has revolved around money. And our home. And our renovation. And how I can make more money to contribute to our family and the renovation of our home.

This feels intensely vulnerable to share, but that’s what this space is all about and I know that I’m not the only one to have ever had — or is having — these kinds of thoughts.

I also recognise the privilege of having this kind of stress. To even have a home, let alone one we are working on to beautify and make our own. I get it, I really do.

With that being said, I want to talk about the backwash of making a decision and living with the reality that comes after making a choice for yourself.

Because, the thing that’s very rarely spoken about after making a decision — particularly a big, life-changing decision that you have really wanted and desired for yourself and worked hard to make a reality — is the rollercoaster of emotions that you ride afterwards.

Our move to Lennox Head wasn’t a simple, quick or easy one.

In reality, it took 4 years from when the seed of the idea of moving away from our original hometown of Adelaide was planted in my heart to us actually living here. In that time, we discussed it, we waited, we made a million tiny and big choices, we sold our home, we moved in with a friend, we seized an opportunity, we moved to Brisbane, we house hunted, we drove countless kilometres along the East Coast of Australia, we sold another home, we bought a new home, and then — finally — we moved to Lennox.

Anyone who has ever had anything to do with real estate will understand the magnitude and complexity of emotions that consume you when you’re in the throws of searching for your next home.

But what hasn’t really been publicly explored or talked much about is what happens after you get the keys, move in and start living the next new chapter of your life.

And this is what I want to share (from my own personal perspective, of course)…

I remember when I was 15 years old.

After 5.5 years in a back brace for scoliosis (curvature of the spine), I had just undergone major back surgery. From memory, it was about a 5-hour surgery and they fused 8 rods and 16 screws into my spine to make it straight.

On the fourth night in the hospital, after my operation, I woke up in the middle of the night hysterical. I called for the nurse, scared and confused. She made me a warm drink, sat on my bed, held my hand and explained to me that the shock of what I had just been through had just hit my body. Essentially: my body finally felt safe — after knowing I had survived the surgery and was beginning my healing — to release the magnitude of emotions and trauma of what I’d just experienced.

I feel like this happens to all of us, at some point, after going through something big.

Whether we experience a major surgery, injury or illness, the loss of a loved one, war, a devastating weather event, or the end of a significant relationship… whatever it is, the mind processes it but the body FEELS it.

I realise that I didn’t mention buying or selling a house or moving interstate in that list, and that’s — obviously — because I want to call it out.

Even though it’s seen as something positive and something we choose to do, doesn’t mean it is all sunshine and rainbows and smooth sailing. It doesn’t mean there isn’t stress or worry or anxiety or freaking out and wondering if you’ve done the right thing. It doesn’t mean you have a million and one ‘sliding doors’ moments scattered throughout your days (and nights) wondering what would have happened if you’d chosen another reality.

Sometimes, a decision — particularly a huge, life-changing one — can be a trauma.

Moving to Lennox Head, we didn’t know a single soul here. No friends, no family. Just our little family of four: me, my husband Chris, our dog Amalfi and our cat Sebby.

Let me tell you, it’s hard to make friends as an adult when you don’t have kids and you work from home. You literally have to put yourself out there and strike up conversations with strangers in the hopes you’ll find your next friend.

I’ve been ghosted by people who promised coffee dates and never texted me back. I’ve been walked away from after really great conversations with no exchange of contact details. I’ve looked on enviously at groups of girlfriends out to dinner and mother’s groups at coffee. (Honestly, someone needs to start a group for people like me who move to a new town and want to make friends!)

No matter what anyone tells you, after having lived in one city for 36 years, another bigger capital city for 1.5 years, and now a coastal regional town for nearly a year, every place is cliquey. I’ve learned that not everyone wants to be your friend. Many people are happy in their friendship group, which is closed and not accepting new members.

But — obviously — there are some special and magnificent souls who transcend all of this. And yes, I have managed to find a handful of these exceptional people who I can genuinely call my friends: aged 24-54, which I think is pretty cool because true friendship knows no age or gender, only heart and energy.

I’ve often said the only thing I miss about my original hometown (and Brisbane) is the people. And though I have had epic episodes of loneliness and longing for friendship, that’s not what has woken me up, night after night.

The choice to upsize our home and renovate once again was not my first choice. Heck, it really wasn’t what I wanted at all. But — as the universe, circumstances and timing would have it — we found ourselves with exactly that. A big house on a big block that hadn’t been updated since it was built (some 23 years ago), hadn’t been lovingly tended to since the original owner moved out and made it a rental (some 7 years ago), and hadn’t been touched since the last renters moved out (some 6 months prior to us moving in).

There’s obviously so much in this for me, for Chris and for us. This particular home has lessons to teach us, that I know. And of course, they are already revealing themselves to me and transforming me. But that will be a story (or, more accurately, stories) for another day…

As with any renovation, we greatly underestimated the magnitude and cost of what this project would be.

Due to the size of the house and the block, nothing was standard, everything was extra. We also had to undertake other jobs that were not part of the plan but had to happen — cleaning the ridiculously black and filth-covered terracotta roof and fixing the guttering, clearing a literal bamboo forest that had gotten completely out of control, and clearing and re-levelling our backyard, to name just a few things. And, of course, there have been countless other unexpected jobs that have popped up along the way that we’ve had to do and had to pay for.

Nothing has cost in the hundreds, everything has been in the thousands.

I have watched the money from the sale of our previous two properties drain from our bank account at lightning speed. At several points over the course of this year, I wondered just who was actually in charge of this renovation — us, the house or the trades we hired. And I have had many stomach-churning conversations with Chris about where the budget was up to, how much money was left, and what we could now no longer afford to do because of the remaining balance.

It actually makes me feel sick just writing that.

And it’s the constant faint feeling of nausea that I’ve carried for most of this year.

It’s also the cause of my insomnia.

And it’s really hard for an intensely emotionally sensitive person like myself to watch the man I love carrying the burden of project managing a renovation of this magnitude while also working full time in a highly stressful and demanding job. To watch him gently but firmly stand his ground numerous times when he actually knew better than certain trades who clearly didn’t know who they were dealing with and spoke to him with dismissal and disrespect. (I may have fired up once or twice to make it known this was not acceptable in my home…) And I have witnessed his growing disappointment as our original dreams and plans have dwindled down to what we can actually afford to make a reality at this point in time.

This is the stuff no one talks about.

Because god forbid, you actually say out loud that what you’ve chosen to do is hard and tiring and scary and you’re hanging by a thread.

I’ve actually been told by someone close to us that we made our choice to move away and that has consequences… and this was after I had reached out to them for help. Not money. Just some help.

And this, THIS, this is why so many of us don’t speak up.

Because I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been the kind of person who, when things get really tough, I retreat within. It’s my default. I’ll shut down. I won’t talk to friends. I go silent. I won’t ask for help. I’ll just let the acid of my stress eat me alive from the inside. Not healthy and definitely not recommended.

So instead, I’ve been leaning on a select few very close friends throughout this year and I’ve been sharing almost daily updates of how I’m feeling just to get it out of me. To take the charge out of my emotions and bring them out into the open so they can be something that I can be in charge of. Knowing I’m not a burden to these beautiful souls has been a godsend. Knowing I am being loved and held and supported means the world. And, if you are reading this right now, you know who you are and I hope you know how much I friggin’ love you and appreciate you.

So that’s why I’m writing this piece.

I want to stamp out this stigma of “you chose it, you deal with it.”

We live in a reality of duality. Both sides of the coin exist and quite often, we can experience them at the same time. And that shit’s intense.

Which is why we need to seek out the people who get it. The ones who are walking similar paths. The ones we can turn to and grab hold of their hand when it all feels like too much and we want to get off this damn ride.

Because these people are the ones that remind us of how wildly capable we are. They are the ones to remind us to take a deep breath, get outside or go get a coffee. They remind us of who the fck we are and that this too shall pass. And they will be right there with us, holding our hand and weathering the storm with us until it calms down again. (Which, inevitably, it will — I promise.)

These people are worth the universe’s weight in gold.

Find them. Hang onto them. Love them. Appreciate them.

And don’t you dare fckng share the intimate and precious details of your life with anyone else. They don’t deserve the privilege.

As I write this, we are coming to the end of what we’ve coined as Phase 1 of our renovation.

We’ve completely transformed (almost) the entire inside of our home and some of the outside, including the backyard. There is so much more we want to do, but divine timing is inviting… no, let’s be real here: FORCING… us to take a pause which just so happens to coincide with the upcoming Australian summer.

It’s like the universe is telling us:

“OK kids, that’s enough for now. Tools down. Enjoy your home. Go to the beach. Have people over. Get out there and live the lifestyle you moved to Lennox for. The rest can wait.”

And the universe, of course, is right.

Because I’m tired. So so tired.

I’ve had enough of the noise and the mess and the disruption — of my home, my mind, my nervous system, my stomach and my sleep.

The time has come to enjoy the decision(s) we’ve made.

And I am so fckng ready for it.

Until the next,

— Sonia. x

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