Imminent Changes
I am growing keenly aware that our world is about to change dramatically. Every aspect of our surroundings and lifestyle will alter when we move.
We have been here before. Having that experience only highlights the coming change.
When we moved from Australia to France, we had time to absorb the decision and make the move at roughly our own pace. We spent time with friends and family before getting on the plane. We packed our apartment up in Melbourne, knowing we would be unpacking into another apartment in Lyon. We were not hurried and we planned all we could.
It was a shift in country and culture, but ultimately a move from one city to another. The lifestyle shifted with the change in cultures but the surroundings were still of the cityscape variety. Cities tend to operate in the same way around the world. Any variation in the differences are highlighted and often celebrated; consider the praise a city can garner for their public transport or greenspaces.
Our pending move is different and likely more dramatic. We will remain in France – with all that entails – but our move is from city to countryside.
We have lived and loved living in city centres for the last decade. We have deliberately placed ourselves in the city centre. Central enough not to need a car, often not even needing any public transport.
For me, the coming move will be a return to more greenery. For Megan it will be her first time living in a smaller community. We both relish the impending change and challenge.
Where we hope for is not a rural retreat, it is not an isolated house, or vacated farm in the middle of vast tracts of countryside. We are not seeking the ex-communication and solitude that many moving to France’s countryside seek.
If all goes to plan, and we are not yet there, we will become part of a small community with neighbours, a few streets, and a church. A larger town with facilities is a walkable distance away. Our views will change from cityscape to countryside. Greenery and forest will replace the apartment blocks and buildings that surround us today.
The move is well over a year away. The first sod of earth has not been shifted. Yet our weekends and most evenings are being spent planning this aspect and that of the change. There are countless details and decisions to be made.
The largest decisions have been made and are being slowly put into place. The single largest decision was choosing where to settle. Not the specific plot but the continent, the country, the region, and only then the community. That first grand decision, made almost unconsciously, has the greatest bearing. It influences every decision that follows.
It is easy to forget the biggest decisions. They come and go so quickly. The detail overwhelms and the broadest strokes are lost.
Now we are focusing on the small and sometimes tiny choices. We can plan for our next year and we can plan for our future life. But planning for the transition, for the setting up, for the putting in place, that is still vague, still unknown, and still ongoing.