We bought a 20 foot container yesterday. We shelled out a pile of cash on a pile of metal that will hold all our earthly belongings, withstanding seas and mountain roads. It’s terrifying. It’s real, and it makes everything seem incredibly now. The lovely woman who sold it to us asked if we wanted to think it over. We just smiled at each other. We have thought on this for so long already, knowing that the moment we pulled the proverbial trigger was the moment of essentially no return. Could we still not make it, by chance, unluck, or choice? Sure. But we won’t now. This is the big step, the push forward.
It arrives to our little hill in only a few days, and it will stare us down until we fill it brimming with totes and tools and instruments of the future. Our list of what to buy before it sets sail is long, expensive, and bizarre to most people. Upfront and of utmost importance, already purchased and sitting here ready, are a sausage stuffer and glorious heavy duty meat grinder. Our Montana-made grain mill just shipped, something I’ve wanted for a while now. I’m chomping at the bit to grind something, stuff something. I say we’ll wait to christen them, but I might not be able to: these are dream machines that should last a lifetime.
We have a Big Red Binder organized, color coded, and placed always on the kitchen table. It contains everything we need to do, need to buy, need to have. Every receipt, every document, every list and timeline. I would like to write a “how to”, but I’m not even sure we’re doing it right half the time. Are we spending money unwisely? Will we regret if we don’t have a new pressure washer? What about solar, how much and when and what and what about if the sun blips out? Do we count on anything beyond this container full of life? Maybe yes, maybe no. There are no solid answers, just a million questions. A million steps in hopefully the not too wrong directions.
Lest anyone think this is easy, shelling out cash like this, it isn’t. It’s really scary, it’s an all in kind of thing. We have scraped everything together, continually pulling financial rabbits out of metaphorical hats for years. This is due only to shear faith, perseverance, and determination. It’s hard, letting go of every back up we have. Selling the bus is the final letting go we must do, our forever back up plan in case. Talk about scary.
I had a few hours last night of anxiety, fear, disbelief. We aren’t just moving to a different country, we are betting our whole existence on this plan. But we bet, we bet on ourselves first and always. We bet that our intuition and dreams will guide us correctly. That we have carve out and build up a home on a mountain in a far away land. That we can be part of the beginning of something extraordinary. I see every tiny step we take, from packing a tote to painting a wall, as a piece of the puzzle of the bigger steps we take, of the biggest step we will ever take that will snowball deliciously into the biggest and best life we could ever dream of.
So baby steps they may all be, but together they are Big Steps.