But Why? (Or A Certain Sacrifice)

It's never an easy decision to move. 

Whether it's packing up a house you've lived in for a decade, whether it's just getting off your couch to go get another beer and a bag of Doritos, moving is not easy. You're comfy. You're settled. You know your surroundings, and everything is in exactly the place where it's supposed to be.

Some people like moving, or at least I think they do. Those are the people who flip their homes every 18 - 36 months. Or have multiple homes in various locations - I mean different states/provinces/countries. Either they just like to declutter so much, they move around, or they just can't settle into one spot.

But I'm a Taurus. I have never liked moving. Even when I lived in the one bedroom apartment in the walk-up with the mice and the roaches, it was still home. Everything was where I wanted it to be. I knew how the cable worked.

Moving always involves some type of sacrifice, whether it's tossing old boxes of stuff that you've carted around for years, or saying goodbye to the trees and roses you planted as seedlings. 

When you're moving in with someone, you're sacrificing your alone time. Back in the day, before smart phones and cell phones, people weren't very content about being alone, so they tended to shack up routinely. These days, it's much easier to live alone, until you don't want to anymore. I'm not sure how younger people do it these days - you want to live with someone but you still spend most of your time alone, scrolling on your phone, avoiding eye contact with the person you're sharing expenses and more with.

When you're young, you have so much to learn about co-habitating, and a lot less "stuff" to worry about. You don't have assets, you don't have many liabilities, you don't have much except hopes and dreams.

But my husband and I have each lived at least two lifetimes before we met. We both have kids, we both own cars and homes, and each of our homes are full of stuff - stuff that means a lot to us. 

While it would be awesome to be rich enough to summer in Canada and winter in the US, that isn't our reality. We're too young to retire and too old to change careers for something more lucrative, unless of course we win the lottery. And if that happens, that would  also change the entire nature of this blog.

So how do you decide what to sacrifice when all you want is to be together to live the rest of your life?

Inevitably, when people talk about Canada-US cross-border moves, the subject of politics and sociopolitical matters comes up. While some of those things played a part in the decision, they weren't the driving force.

We asked ourselves who was going to make the bigger sacrifice to be with the other person. There's  only so much of yourself you should ever sacrifice for someone else, be they your spouse or your child or any other relation, and only so much of a sacrifice you can ask someone to make for you. You should and must never give up 100% of who you are for someone else, and likewise, you must never demand that someone give up 100% of who they are for you.

That is often the hardest lesson for those of us wanting and needing to be in relationships to learn, but having someone who won't let you do that and who won't do that themselves helps make things so clear.

If you look on the surface, it may appear that I had more to lose. But everything I'm moving with and/or away from was always going to change. My child is going to grow into an adult. We were going to move out of this house eventually. The landscape where I am is changing as is my life around me.

But my husband's roots run deep, far deeper than mine have ever run. It's one of the things that continues to draw me to him. Those roots need to be honoured.