Big Changes In My World | Life Update!

My friends, I feel like I’ve been holding out on you lately. This blog is a place where I share my passions for food, exercise, travel, and all things healthy living, but it’s also a place where I share pieces of my personal life and what’s been happening in my world. There have been some big changes in the making and I’ve kind of kept quiet on here about them because I’ve been busy getting it all figured out…. but today I want to fill you in!

When I first moved to California in the beginning of 2010, while I immediately fell in love with so much here, I didn’t think it would be our forever home. So much has happened over the years, from living the Marine wife lifestyle, deployments, and adjusting to San Diego being my new home, to moving up to Northern California for a stint, to buying a home back in the San Diego area.

Somewhere along the way, California went from being this fun, strange new place, to becoming my home. I will be delving deeper into it in another post in the coming weeks, but I feel it in my soul that I’m a California girl at heart, and I’ve really grown up & become an adult since I’ve moved here. But I always knew that a time would come when I just felt it in my gut that we wanted to be closer to our families on the east coast, and that time came earlier this year. Something clicked and I all of a sudden felt unsettled here in San Diego. And so, the biggest change that’ll be happening later this summer is that my husband and I are leaving the San Diego area, and moving back to the northeast.

We won’t be returning to our home state of New Jersey, but my husband has accepted a position in New York outside of the city, so I can say with some certainty that we plan to buy a home in coastal Connecticut just a few hours from our families. I’ve spent a grand total of one afternoon there a few months ago while he was on his job interview, but my first impression was that I really liked the area. I’ll keep you posted on where we wind up!

My husband recently completed his MBA, so he is transitioning into the finance industry – an area he has been wanting to work in. From being a Marine Corps officer to transitioning into civilian life as a logistics professional in a few different industries, and now moving into a finance position, I’m so proud of all he has accomplished and am excited for this next chapter in his career.

Moving means we are selling the home we’ve lived in in Southern California for the past four years, so our house is officially on the market! Between getting ready for professional photos and a video tour of our place, to open houses and showings, this whole home selling business has been running my life. I will hopefully have more news to share about my house soon (fingers crossed!).

The last big change I have to share is that I’ve just parted ways with the public relations agency that I’ve been a part of for nine years. Throughout the development of my side hustle career in the health & wellness world doing things like earning my health coaching certification & beginning to coach, doing journalism work for local newspapers, and recipe developing for wellness brands, my role as a publicist has always been my steady job to fall back on. But in recent months, I’ve felt disconnected from the role and have had less patience with all that the job entails. When I went on a work trip a few months ago to Las Vegas, on the plane ride home, I told myself that that would be the last work trip I’d go on with the company.

I’ve moved up and learned as much as I possibly could with the company, and even though I adored the flexibility of the job and being able to work from anywhere, as a whole it no longer was working for me. At times it has been difficult to balance freelance writing gigs, blogging, and working as as publicist all at once, and moving forward, I’m committed to doing more work that I’m passionate about. I don’t know exactly what that means for the next steps in my career just yet, but I’m confident that all will work out well.

They say the only constant in life is change, and it’s funny how sometimes things will seem pretty consistent for awhile, and then all of a sudden a lot changes. I’ve come to learn that these ebbs and flows are the nature of life, and right now I clearly am in a period of change. With big change obviously comes stress and uncertainty, but I’m trying to just roll with it and remembering to stay mindful, take it one step at a time, practice gratitude every single day, and continue to hold the belief that the universe has my back in every gut decision that I’ve made, am making and will make in the future. I like to look at life as one big adventure, and this is the next phase in our lives – happening all at once it seems!

A big part of me is going to miss California terribly. From the laidback lifestyle and the wonderful weather, to the glorious mountains and wine, almost everything about this state agrees with me. If you’re wondering if I’m sort of dreading winters and crazy humidity in the northeast, the answer without question is yes. But a part of me is also excited to see our families regularly; to be able to just pop over for a weekend visit with my parents; to get to take more trips to explore exotic locales instead of taking time off to fly into Newark or Philly to see our families.

I also am looking forward to exploring the northeast more. My husband has never been to Boston – which will be just a few hours away, and one of my close girlfriends lives there. We’ve never been to Vermont, Maine, or Montreal – all of which I am already planning to explore.

This will by my 5th move with my husband, and I can say pretty confidently that it won’t be our last. The plan is to see how we feel in the northeast for a little while, and then we’ll take it from there. To be honest, I like not having everything lined up and figured out in our lives. It makes for an exciting, albeit sometimes a little crazy, life together! For now, it’s time to focus on the logistics of getting our house sold, moving our lives cross country, planning a 2,600 mile road trip (this time with an energetic pup), and figuring out where we will be living next.

Tell me.. What/when was the last BIG change in your life?