volants

Sometimes life circumstances are out of our control and that was certainly the case for the first part of the year but I knew that while I couldn’t change that which was without I could change within and I set out to do it with great victory. I cried every single day for two months straight before I had one day where I didn’t cry and I remember it feeling like the first of many triumphant moments.

Most of the time I’d say that life has been far better than it’s been for years and not that it was bad before but that there’s a certain element of freedom I’d forgotten could exist. Throughout the years I’d never forgotten about my dream to live abroad but somehow it seemed important to make my ties here. I’d always joke about getting to Paris before a big milestone I’d laid out but even still it would be just a trip, it wouldn’t be a lifestyle. I even longed to one day raise a child abroad. Not that Canada was necessarily bad but that it didn’t feel quite like me. I’m trying to figure out a way to explain it but maybe I wanted my childhood on steroids being more rustic, more homespun, with a few wooden toys and a lot of nature and being part of a culture that wasn’t constantly striving as hard as North America has to automate life.

{side note} Ahh!!! I just got my letters to take to the French consulate!!! This is really happening! {side note}

While I was working through much of the turmoil of this year I realized I had this deep need to simplify. I ached to strip away the excess and go after core values and invest in things that were important like relationships and the ways that we interact and the basic needs of life. I know that as I write this it makes me sound like a full on hippy, which is such a far cry from the truth and it doesn’t even mean that I want to give up everything. I will still have a laptop (which I’m picking up this weekend!) and yes I will have a camera and a way to listen to music. In fact I might even get books on my phone because I’ve developed a desire to read again. I get to slow down in a way. What I really desire is to rid myself of the cycle of stress I’d been practically luring in.

Even my soap making was birthed out of a love for learning and simplifying. It’s not as though soap making is a mystery but it’s a process that’s been around for centuries and there is something very beautiful about how precise it is and how such an old method is so relevant for today. Before I leave I’ve only signed up for one show and I’ve got a few orders to fill and some marketing materials for a very large event in the states that I want to attract interest from. It’s an exciting time and yet I trust I don’t need to worry like I used to. I don’t need to overwhelm myself with projects but I can move forward without inhibitions and fears I used to have. I fell into this job. Funny how life happens, how it pulls something from so far in leftfield and places it on our radar and now something that was foreign to me is so much a part of my life, so much so I’ll be teaching others the process when I arrive in Nice. Who could have, for even a moment, have determined that I would come into soap making or photography and would take these skills abroad with me to leap into the unknown?

One thing that’s sure is that I always knew I’d get overseas I just never knew what I’d do there. So in a way I’m thankful that the skills I’ve been fostering for several years are ones that I can carry with me I’ve started to develop a life that doesn’t need to be tied down but rather is tied to a helium balloon that goes where the wind blows. In the process I’m learning to drop the weights of fear so I can enjoy the ride.