Embracing a New Norm- Living Free

A year ago, Gerry and I would have been envious when others would say, “Happy Friday!” or use #tgif since our weekends running our business were consumed with managing staff, and customers, hectic weekend hours, and wishing we were able to get away for a couple of days, like everyone else. Our norm for living was just pushing through, hour by hour, rarely leaving our home base for too long since we may be needed for a work emergency. We certainly never felt free.

We left that world behind, now 7 months ago. We threw caution to the wind and moved to the NC Coast to a tiny little home, two blocks from the ocean breeze to create what is now our new norm. Life isn’t ever perfect, but for us, this is pretty near perfect since we feel the aging process slowing down a bit. 🙂 We begin our days with coffee, sitting on our front porch (if weather permits, then it’s our sofa) reflecting on how appreciative we are- literally, this happens every morning- then discussing what the day holds. We don’t discuss this in dread but with excitement. Gerry and I both, fortunately, work near the ocean also, so living and working by the sea is also our new norm. There are many studies on how living, and basically doing anything, by the ocean, is healthier for you, mentally and physically. Wise + Well lists the benefits of the sea in this great read.

Each day, we put in a full day’s work, then spend most of our afternoons walking Betty White either on the beach or on the Beaufort boardwalk, then if we can dine outside, we always do. Again, our new norm. We have the freedom of “after hours” now, rather than always being on-call.

On weekends, we still enjoy the ocean, taking in a “touristy” activity, since we still haven’t hit our year mark here yet, so the locals don’t quite consider us one of them yet. In fact, when you aren’t a local, you are referred to around these parts as a “dingbatter”. Yes, a dingbatter. 😉 We wear the title proudly.  So, hitting up all of the things that we may not have done when we used to visit this area is still easy. Cape Lookout opens to lighthouse climbs in the next few weeks, so that is still on our list. We also have our regular chores like we did at home, but actually have time to do them now. Our chores are much less demanding (a huge advantage of living tiny). We have laundry, and cleaning our tiny abode, and this past weekend, we had to get out the a/c unit to install it again, now that the warm temps are back. Thankfully, Becky’s Homestead saved the day with her awesome, and delightfully charming YouTube channel, on how to clean an a/c unit! We also washed our cars, and cleaned up the outside of the house a bit- all done with the ocean breeze in the background. No matter how tired you get while doing chores near the ocean, you simply cannot complain- it’s not allowed. If you do, you must leave.

So, life again, is not perfect. We still have struggles like everyone. We still get stressed about deadlines, have concerns about our loved ones, and not seeing friends and family as much as we should now that we live a few hours away, but at the end of the day, this new norm is just what was needed after our old norm wasn’t conducive to our lives, and frankly, our well being, at all. We are thankful for the success we had in our business and feel blessed to have experienced the clients (furry and non-furry) in our lives, but it took its toll, and we are enjoying our new norm, every single day.