So here I am.  Walking around like a California Girl with my Colorado mindset.  My vision for my future got me here.  It is the feel good, big picture: Nancy-Pickard-and-Dog my map for the future.  My moving here and staying in a town house that is not exactly as it was described is not the feel good part.  Being in a town where I don’t know one person is also not one of the feel good parts. Sitting in yoga while girls are all talking together and “my Girls” are back in Aspen, is not among the feel good parts. But as I tell my clients all the time; the action steps and goals often are not the parts that feel good.  The goals and action steps are not always fun!  I’m in the action step period.

So after almost a year of planning for my partial move to California; I am proud to say I am here doing exactly that. 

Following my inner wisdom, I know that moving here and being close to at least one set of my kids and their children will be a really important move for me.  I love Aspen but living there as a single woman for two years taught me it wasn’t the place for me anymore:  at least not fulltime.  As I became a life coach I really learned to listen to my inner voice and to always choose in alignment with my vision.  Any action that I took that would not lead me here, was going against what my heart knew was right for me.  I put all my faith into my faith.  It doesn’t mean that fear didn’t rear its ugly head many times; because it did, all the time.  It showed up as excuses, rationalizations and sad feelings. I chose to recognize my fears, analyze my fears, have compassion around my fears, but act from faith.  I would consistently check back in with my heart and ask myself if I saw my future in California as the right choice for me.  Consistently it came back as a definite “YES”!

So Bella and I packed up our stuff (she watched and I did the actually packing) and rented a place in Sausalito.  I had this feeling that waking up to the water and boats would feel good to my soul, and it does.  After nine years in Aspen, my eyes were yearning for water.  I am such a lover of nature and am so blessed to have been living in daily beauty in Aspen.  This is an entirely different picture and it feeds me to the core of my being.  I instinctively knew being around the water was going to be crucial for this transition.  I needed to surround myself in beauty to counter my feelings of aloneness and displacement.

I may be alone, but most of all, I just feel really good.  I am on my own and going out every day and exploring and going to yoga and the beach and hiking.  I come home and work for hours every evening on my website and coach my clients.  I am going out on many dates and have a few female friends and I am signing up for “meet up” groups. I am so in love with myself for putting on my Big Girl Panties and following through with this decision, that loneliness never enters into it.  Confidence and self-love are talking over the party and it feels AWESOME!

Thank goodness for GPS.  For someone who is as directionally impaired as I am-moving to another state was really asking a lot.

The other evening my younger son, Jared called and was so relieved when I answered the phone.  He said the last time we talked was two days earlier when he called and I told him I was hiking with a friend and we were almost 5 hours into the hike: lost and really hungry.  When he finally remembered to check in with me he was already thinking what he would tell the police officer when he explained he was the last one to have any contact with me and what my last words were.

Welcome to California!