Traveling Light session 1

I am relaxing in the quiet. Everyone has gone to bed and I am sitting in the brown, comfy chair enjoying a cup of tea and listening to the rain come down. This is one of my favorite times of the day. I am a morning person, but there is something about the peace and quiet of a house after everyone has gone to sleep.

I have wanted to write this blog all week, but this one is a hard one for me to write. Even now I am writing and erasing, writing and erasing. Sigh. The topic has been on my mind for months and then I was reminded the other day by a quote on a tea bag of all things. It may seem like nothing to somebody else, but to me it made perfect sense. "Travel light, live light, spread the light and be the light."

In the past two years I have learned what this means. When my husband and I first moved to Nashville (6 years ago) we had little to nothing. We moved from Alaska where we were both born and raised to start a new life here in Tennessee. In Alaska we were earning less than 10,000 per year. I was a stay at home mom raising a newborn and a 2 year old. I was going to college full-time and He was working as hard as he could to support us. When an opportunity came up for him to play in a band in Nashville we jumped at the chance.

We literally put all of our possessions in a hollowed out Chevy van (1985 I think) and him and his best friend made the long trek from Alaska to Nashville. The kids and I stayed in Alaska for a few months so I could finish my current semester in school. We had put every bit of finances we had into the trip (adventure) to Nashville. So there was no option for failure. He even put on a fundraising show to raise money to go. On his drive down (6 days of driving)the band he was going to be playing for ran into some technical difficulties and was no longer a band. Needless to say, there was no longer a job.

At this point in time, there was no turning back. We had made a decision and we were sticking to it. He was able to land himself a job as a trainer at a local gym the second day he was in town. A few months later the kids and I joined him in Nashville. Things were extremely tight for probably the next year to 2 years. We were in an apartment, but we had no furniture. We slept on the floor, graduated to an air mattress and after a year finally bought a box spring and mattress. Our kitchen table was a card table and we didn't have a couch, we used bean bags. Those were good times. Good memories. I remember times when I made the most horrible concoctions out of whatever canned goods I could find in the cupboard.

Eventually we began to pull out of the tight spot. He began to move up the ladder and I started working at the gym in the daycare. Somewhere around this time we bought a new car. Until then we had been sharing, yes you guessed it. The van. Which by the way, we actually both liked. I think it reminded us of what it took to get here and how far we had come.

A good place to stop for the night.. stay tuned..