Sometimes, To Achieve Your Dreams, You Have to Follow Somebody Else's

In less than two months we're moving away. We only found out a week ago. 

100 miles away from our home in Birmingham, a place me and my Ben were born into, grew up through, and found one another inside of. Now, we're elongating our home, stretching it out to the Liverpudlian docks where it will skirt the waterfront and extend up three, four, maybe five floors. Depends what apartment we get. 

Now, let's get something straight from the get go:

I don't want to go. 

Not in the same way I want to travel around Canada for a year and I want to write a fantasy romance that makes readers cancel their dinner plans because they're busy swallowing an entire 450 page book in 6 hours. 

This sudden uprooting of our roots here is not particularly what I want - or have ever wanted - to do. 

Not to mention the fact that five days ago, I started a new job. A full-time job. A 9 to 6:30 job, five days a week, in which I find myself counting down the hours and pining for the weekend. That's a person I never wanted to be.

So why did I take the job? Because, originally, when me and Ben were both job hunting, it was in aid of saving money for a year in which, afterwards, we'd both swap the briefcases for suitcases (well, actually, backpacks larger than a dad born in the 60s) and head off to Canada to do that travelling we both desperately want to do. 

But now - plot twist! - Ben's landed his dream job up in Liverpool. And so that's where we have to live(rpool). 

Thing is, Ben doesn't want to go either. He wants the job, sure, and I was the one who encouraged him to even apply for this job all those months ago, knowing exactly where it was located and what that would mean, because he is the most capable and brilliant being I've ever been lucky enough to love and his happiness is THE MOST important thing to me in this existence - and he got it! And I'm so proud! And he's so excited! But we both bloody wish it was remote. Neither of us actually wants to move.

We are though.

And just like that I'm suddenly landed with a full-time job that's seemingly leading nowhere - Canada has been scratched off our map for the time being - and an unknown city beckoning us toward it and demanding that we call it home.

But… uh… I don't wanna. 

I am arguably sacrificing the person I want to be:

• A countryside-living introvert working freelance hours of her own choosing, prioritising time with loved ones, wandering across lands near and far with her soulmate and actively focusing time on writerly projects that she's passionate about including book writing and content writing for causes such as cats in need of a home.

And instead, I'm having to be:

• A city liver surrounded by people working rigid and lengthy hours, no longer having free time to spend with loved ones and seeing her soulmate a little less now that they'll be work differing hours and being so burned out from a full-time job that she's no longer writing exactly what it is she wants to be writing (think of all the homeless cats that will be left in her wake). 

A month ago me and Ben were planning to pop over to Canada for a few weeks this year to scout out the places we'd most like to call home for however long it homes us - and a month later, our actual home has been whipped out from beneath our feet and shipped 100 miles north.

We're no longer skipping towards our earlier goals. Now, we've taken a rather large leap back from them.

But within that bleak reality  -  there's a silver lining

And no, I don't just mean the silver furniture, silver countertops, silver everything of any new property we've been scouring through these past couple days (seriously, have people forgotten that we stopped living in monochrome back in 1928?). 

Somehow, unexpectedly, having had a little (and I do mean the littlest) time to get our heads around it all, I'm starting to see the light - and it's shining from a hundred miles away.

Above all else and beyond these little niggling factors that have made me cry into my mom's arms for the past few days, her crying back, both of us innately averse to any amount of physical distance, I will always know why I'm doing this. Mom even said to me, repeatedly, "you're doing it for your soulmate. Remember that every time you feel sad." Because I am. I'd do anything for him. I'd hole up in a cavern occupied by spiders if it meant that I had my Ben beside me, following his colossal-sized heart. He'd do the same for me, but irrespective of that, I could never WOULD NEVER deny him the chance to follow his passions. I'm lucky to be able to follow them hand-in-hand alongside him.

He knows how I feel about all this. He feels the same in many ways. But despite all the sadness lingering around this unexpectedness, there's a larger burst of happiness, of pride, clasping at us and hoping we desperately see the good in all this. The good that comes in the form of:

• Experience. For both of us. In each of our endeavours
• New lands to roam and new bakeries to binge eat in
• A chance for Ben to turn his passion into his career
• A chance for me do continuing doing the same for mine - these new surroundings and new routines might inspire me to knuckle down on the book I'm writing
• A chance for us to start fostering kittens and give cats a home in a different way
• New museums to explore which means MORE GIFT SHOPS FOR EM

What I initially thought of as a step backwards might actually propel us forward. The intensity of my job might inspire me to write my stories quick time, knowing how precious free time truly is. The distance from our family and friends back home will remind us to value every second of closeness we get, and how lucky we are to already be so close to them, outside of physical distance. 

And hey, maybe Canada isn't ready for us yet, anyway. But it better be, soon. 

Because the one thing we'll never do is settle

It was the thing I worried about the most in regards to this move. 

Settling for time-consuming workdays - because we've always valued time over money. Settling for a city life - because we've always belong in the wild. Settling for the idea that we'll just have to keep putting Canada off - because we know life is for living, not waiting around. 

But that's not true at all. 

Settling is a choice - and it's one we'll never choose. This is an adventure for as long as we want to be. If we hate it, we'll find our home elsewhere. If we love it, we'll love it wholeheartedly. Whatever happens, we'll choose what's right. 

And right now, I choose Ben's happiness. I choose his fulfillment. I choose to be wherever he needs to be. Because he his my home, no matter where it is we might make olive pastas and wash our pants. Wherever that might be will be the place I most want to be - because that's where he is. 

So no. 

This isn't us settling, this is us steering our course through unchartered lands that will lead us into our next adventures.

This isn't a step backward at all - it's a stride somewhere new. And Ben? Just know: I'd go everywhere with you.