-Part 2
There's a poetry to the way our stories unfold—the same narratives spinning within us, slightly altered with each retelling. I find myself drawn to share them again and again. Perhaps it's because when we release our stories into words, they take on a life beyond us, shimmering with different shades and colors. And sometimes, when someone receives these stories, both the tale and the listener become more alive in that sacred exchange.
I was writing about our digital transformation in 2021, tracing back through memory's winding corridors. It's remarkable how interconnected everything was—how one decision cascaded into another, creating the tapestry of our lives today.
It began with selling our first house in 2018. I was carrying our third child, my belly round and heavy with promise. Something new was stirring within me, beyond just the life growing inside. It was a calling toward the unknown, a whispered invitation to step forward into uncertainty.
Those final days in our first home remain vivid in my mind. The afternoon light streaming through kitchen windows as we signed the selling papers spread across the worn wooden table. My fingers trembled slightly, not just from the weight of the decision but from the life ready to emerge from within me. I remember catching my husband's eye across the table, his gaze steady and reassuring amid our shared trepidation.
Just days after signing, our youngest arrived—in our kitchen, just as we had planned and long awaited. The midwives arrived with calm confidence, joining my husband, mother-in-law, and our children who gathered in a circle of support and wonder. There was something profoundly right about bringing this new life into the world in the heart of our home, surrounded by those we loved, just as we prepared to leave it behind. The symbolism wasn't lost on me: endings and beginnings, intertwined in the most poetic of ways.
Life accelerated then slowed dramatically. Six months later, we made another bold choice—to leave everything familiar behind and travel with our three little ones. Three months of wandering through Mauritius and its surrounding areas, discovering its wonders together. We lived in small cottages overlooking turquoise waters, in villas on the beach where the children learned to identify tropical birds and plants we'd never seen at home, in vibrant communities where our eldest practiced counting in new languages.
Those mornings in Mauritius still visit my dreams—fresh fruit from local markets, our children's laughter echoing against the backdrop of rustling palm trees as they chased each other on white sand beaches. My husband and I would sit with coffee gone cold, lost in conversation about who we were becoming, who we wanted to be.
We had an abundance of time—for nothing and everything. Perhaps for the first time, we had time to truly know each other. Not just as partners in the daily logistics of family life, but as souls with dreams and fears and longings. I remember one evening in particular, the children finally asleep in an unfamiliar room, when he confessed his own uncertainty about the path ahead. In that vulnerability, I recognized my own reflection.
When we returned home, we were utterly changed. Nothing that came before fit anymore, like trying to squeeze into clothes we'd long outgrown. The old life felt constricting, predetermined—a script we no longer wished to follow.
We moved into a new house amid a flurry of unconventional decisions. No more traditional school with its rigid structures. No more kindergartens where we'd peel tearful children from our legs each morning. No more painful goodbyes, stomach aches before Monday mornings, runny noses from constant classroom illnesses, screams and cries at departure.
I remember one particularly difficult morning before our travels, finding my middle child hiding in the closet, begging not to go to kindergarden. The look in those innocent eyes haunted me through our journeys and solidified my resolve upon our return. No more conforming to things simply because they were obvious or expected.
Instead, we embraced questions without immediate answers. Big, expansive questions that kept us awake at night and animated our breakfast discussions. Questions that made space for possibility rather than certainty.
I no longer wanted to live a prescribed life. I craved purpose and meaning that resonated with my truest self. I wanted my people—my husband, my children, our chosen family—close to me. The children were small, and I felt acutely how fleeting this time was, how quickly they would journey toward their adult selves.
Our new kitchen became the heart of this reimagined life. Between pancakes and cookies and experimental dishes that sometimes succeeded gloriously and sometimes failed spectacularly, we built our days around togetherness. I would hold them close, feeling their small bodies against mine—their warmth, their weight, their trust—and marvel at both the heaviness and lightness of it all: the decisions, the responsibility, the pure joy of being present with them.
In quiet moments while they played or napped, I devoured podcasts and books that articulated what I felt stirring within. Words that resonated deep within me, affirming my growing certainty that there was another way to live. I didn't want to be just a person, just a number, just another figure moving through life on autopilot. I wanted to be authentically myself, though I wasn't entirely sure what that meant or how to achieve it.
But I knew I would find a way. The way forward began with that house, with simply moving in and moving on during the strange stillness of the pandemic. Who could have known that decision would so profoundly shape our future? Now we look back with both nostalgia and joy at how life cycles around—one more day, one more year, one more revolution of our shared story.
We eventually sold that house too, embracing a new chapter as full-time nomads. Now we move through the world deliberately, learning directly from its diverse landscapes and cultures. Our days are shaped by slow travel, connections with intentional communities, natural learning opportunities for our children, and a cultivated sense of everyday wonder that continues to transform us.
Sometimes at dusk, when the house quiets and the children's breathing deepens in sleep, I sit under unfamiliar stars and marvel at the path that brought us here. How could we have known, signing those papers with my swollen belly between us, that we were not just changing homes but changing the very foundation of our existence?
Our oldest now documents our journeys through careful drawings and observations in journals that grow heavier with each passing month. Our middle child builds elaborate worlds from found objects collected across continents and narrates stories that make us laugh until tears stream down our faces. And our youngest, born as we left one life behind, now runs wild and free in a life built around his natural rhythms, regardless of where in the world we find ourselves.
And so the story continues, echoing and evolving. The same but different, familiar yet constantly new—like the morning light that greets us each day, dependable in its arrival but never quite the same in how it paints our temporary walls, our weathered faces, our ever-unfolding lives.
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