Blog 57: We're changing course!

The longer we had to wait for the contractor's quote, the more our feelings actually started to speak. After much deliberation, all things considered, we got clarity in a direction that we ourselves had not really expected. Because what do we really want at this moment? Of course, 'a house' popped up first. In the meantime, this had become a kind of automatic answer, without really thinking about it. But was that really what we wanted most at this moment? Of course, we left home and hearth behind us and all that time we had the idea of building a new place under the sun. A piece of our own land, living self-sufficiently and seeing from there what possibilities would unfold. But along the way, so much happened during our journey of discovery, which also gave us a different perspective on life. Was having a house really the right direction for us at this moment?

Offer for housing

Unfortunately, we didn’t hear anything from either the contractor or the real estate agent during the first few weeks after the appointment. In the meantime, we had already written down some calculations ourselves and that made us a bit skeptical. “But, we’ll just wait for the quote, who knows, it might not be that bad”, we kept saying to each other. At some point, our feelings changed. We got clarity, without even having received the quote. We felt that we were closing the chapter. For now. This wasn’t our house. We were still somewhat curious about the quote, but we slowly started thinking in a different direction.

In the end, we didn't hear anything at all. Of course, we could have followed up, but our feelings had changed too much in the meantime. In fact, after all that pulling over the past few months, we were just a bit done with it. If we had to force contact at this point, it probably wouldn't be very different further on in the process. This method didn't suit us.

We truly think Italy is a wonderful country. Busy and chaotic, yes. But at the same time it always ends up on its feet or something. Except for this house. And because searching further at this point did not feel right for us, we made a drastic decision!

To change course

The past two years we have had a specific goal. From the beginning the idea was to buy a house in Spain. The fact that our adventure started with one leg in Spain and one leg in the Netherlands did not help at all. But hey, life goes on as it goes. After being in the Netherlands for almost eight months, we could not wait to go back to Spain to look for a house there again. But the feeling did not come. Was our new home perhaps in Italy after all? Even though we initially wanted to approach this cautiously, we eventually gave it a full chance. The process we have been in the last few weeks in Italy was quite intensive. We continuously tried to visualize the picture, to integrate, to mingle with the local people and their customs. In addition, we felt like we stepped way outside our comfort zone by actually taking steps around a house with an Italian real estate agent and Italian contractor. But still, we did not get any closer to buying a house. To be honest, at this point we felt a bit lost.

There was just a constant lack of a feeling in our gut of 'This is our new home. Yay, this is what we're going for'! A feeling that we both need to go all out for something. Just like when we bought the Defender, quit our jobs or sold our house. Not the easiest decisions. Was it anxiety? Are we too perfectionistic? Do we not dare to make a choice? Or is this really not it yet? Is there something better waiting? It all made me a bit insecure.

We had let go of all the certainties in the Netherlands, but in the meantime we had created a bit of a tunnel vision in the search for a home. It became a new form of 'being stuck'.

I sincerely wanted it to 'work out' here. That I could say and especially feel, we have found our home! Only at a certain point, and certainly in the last few months, we noticed that in that search we had completely lost sight of ourselves. We believe that if you completely let go of something that you are completely stuck on, the energy will start to flow again and things will come your way again as if by themselves. So why didn't we do that?

Wants

Until we realized again: we live now. What do we want now? In the past few months, this 'silly' creature kept telling us that. We've come across this bug so much, it seemed like a plague to us! Eventually, when we decided to change course again, we never came across it again. The most important message of this creature is: What do you really want(s)?

And well, the first answer to this question was for both of us time and time again: make a nice trip with our Defender . But why didn't we do that anyway? The answer to that was again: first a house because that would give peace. From that point on we would still have enough time to make such a trip. But the fact is: you never know if you have enough time. So there it came again... what do we want now?

Mirror mirror

Actually, Mark's vlogs and my own blogs work as a kind of mirror for ourselves. I noticed that I had a lot of trouble publishing my blogs. It took and took. I spent hours, sometimes even days, working on it and I constantly felt a blockage. Something that started to stagnate more and more since the focus of our search took over: first in Spain and now in Italy. Our way of traveling during the search for a house, a place where you are really going to settle for the time being, was for us a completely different way of looking at an environment than when we are traveling without that goal.

Where do we see ourselves happiest? When we are 'on our way'! Then the energy flows again, we become creative and we are bubbling with ideas. We saw exactly these people clearly in Mark's introductory video. A feeling that we were missing a bit in ourselves at the moment.

For us, a sign that something was just not quite right. In addition, I didn't dare express that, because, well, we're living our dream, aren't we? No 'whining' then. But of course, during this journey of discovery, we also occasionally come face to face with ourselves. Just like with every major choice that is made in life. Now that the penny had dropped for us, staying stuck in the situation was of course not an option, so...

Let's go have fun!

We are stopping house hunting for the time being. We are letting it go. We had to pull ourselves together a bit after this decision, because this choice also involved enough fears. Of course, our savings will also run out at some point. It is not that we can continue this way of life until we are 80. But that feeling immediately came back: we are living now. No one has certainty and we are both not averse to rolling up our sleeves when necessary. That is a certainty that we will always carry with us.

We have no fixed plans again and this time no prospect of stability. On the one hand, that part of our journey is new and therefore a bit exciting, but on the other hand: REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO IT!

For now it is really high time to go to the Netherlands to see family and friends again. And from there we want to continue our adventure with a different feeling and do what has been on our non-existent bucket list for a very long time: travel around with and live in our Defender !

The last days in Italy have arrived. We are busy with the final preparations, so that after months of hopping from apartment to apartment, we can fully live in our tiny house on wheels.

For now, we're going back to the happiest version of ourselves! Something that is largely summarized in the video below.

Dear you, thank you again for reading and I wish you a beautiful day today!