The adventures of a gypsy soul

I have been living in my home, my beautiful home that I renovated and have loved living in.

My beautiful home that overlooks some of the most idyllic countryside with cattle and a river and mountains, my beautiful home that my son and our crazy family of animals have grown up in, for more than 10 years. And that’s a long time for me.

I have what I have called a “gypsy soul”, for most of my adult life. A yearning to travel, to move, to create new spaces, to find new faces and to explore and challenge myself. I’ve picked up and moved with hardly a moment’s notice, young bub in tow and landed in communities knowing no-one and establishing a place to be for a while. It’s usually been led by work opportunities – a chance to manage a new division, an increase in responsibilities, a move to head office region … so there’s always been a “reason to go” that’s always outweighed the reasons to stay.

I decided to settle, and to renovate a beautiful home to create a “permanent” space, to give more certainty to my young son. To give him a school to grow with, a community to be part of, a place to call home. When we moved here, we knew no one and it wasn’t for a work opportunity. It was a lifestyle choice, a chance to be the best mum I thought I could be, to provide all that he would need to succeed.

He finishes school this year, and while the focus is certainly on the study that should be happening, and the plans that should be clear … I find myself dreaming of packing up again. I love my home, but my reason to stay seems to have been achieved and the reasons to go are calling my name. It’s a very long time since I’ve had the freedom to live as I choose, to go where I feel, to respond to my soul. It has been, delightfully and rightfully, focused on school times and sport, on raising a young tiny bubba into the wonderful man he is becoming.

It was my absolute priority to settle and focus on this goal and it has been a wonderful, insightful, challenging and rewarding experience. But now I’ve paid my last school fee, and sat in my last parent teacher interview. There will soon be TWO adults in this house, and I will have – on my own, with no partner – brought him up through his childhood and school years to graduate and be on his way to where he wants to be.

The sacrifices have been enormous but without question, they have been worth it. And now, I’m dreaming of what life will be like on the “other side” of parenting. I am fortunate to have pivoted my business in COVID to be focused on consulting with wonderful clients. COVID has shown us all that working remotely can be readily done.

So, I think there will be no empty nest happening here. I won’t be pushing him out of the family home, but I think I will be stretching my wings and taking off on short flights again! While I’ll always cherish and keep our family home, I can’t wait for freedom again. Should I stay or should I go? I believe there is a balance where both can be achieved!

If your soul craves more, if your heart beats to a different kind of drum, if you ache to live the way you’ve dreamt of, then keep going. As you get closer, your heart will tell you the direction to take. For me? A home to return to and hold all that’s dear, and a horizon of adventures for this gypsy soul.

Until next month xx •