I’ve been talking (with my husband & family) for a while of doing something different with my life – something a bit daring (for me anyway) and now that the opportunity has finally presented itself, I’m a little scared to take that next step.

The lead up to the “shakeup”

The lease on our townhouse finishes at the end of June (2009). We received a letter from the real estate agent a few weeks ago asking if we were planning to renew for six or twelve months. Warren and I had a quick chat about it and decided we would go ahead with the full twelve months – even though we were thinking of a six month escape to perhaps New York – we could house swap, or just have someone house sit while we were away. The only thing about this is it seems absurd to be paying rent here in Melbourne and then having to pay for accommodation somewhere else as well. So the idea got relegated to the back burner – as often happens.

Then out of the blue, one of our neighbours tells us they’ve been served with a rent increase for their next twelve months – we’ve got our 9 month inspection on the 31st of March and in all likelihood, we’ll be asked to pay more rent as well.

For some reason, the thought of paying more rent for a place that isn’t my ideal place all of a sudden seems intolerable. Yes, we’ve had a few niggles with the place but it’s also a really nice place to live – very spacious, a great family home. Deep down inside though, I really want to live near the beach and we just haven’t found the right place for the right price here in Melbourne.

Now I know some of you purists would say that Melbourne doesn’t have beaches as such because we are situated on a bay – I sort of agree, but all my family is here and I don’t really want to move away from them.

Well, it’s now time to take that leap and have a bit of an adventure in a beautiful, warm, beachside location – which means somewhere other than Melbourne.

The “Leap of Faith”

It’s the leap of faith or stepping into the unknown that is really freaking me out. You know that scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Harrison Ford is at the edge of the cliff and has to get acros that huge gaping chasm – that’s how I feel at the moment. Logically I can tell myself that I just need to take that first step and then the next step and so on and it will be ok. But I’ve never done this before – will it really work out for me the way I want it to? And now I have all these quotes popping up in my head like “Do the thing and you’ll have the courage to do the thing”, “You’ll see it when you believe it”.

Warren and I made a rough plan late last year that in around June/July this year he would take a six month break from his IT consulting and we would work on our own business and share trading. The proviso for this was that we would have accumulated a lump sum of money that would be our financial backing while we built up other streams of income.

Well clearly our plan wasn’t concrete enough because the lump sum isn’t quite there yet and July is fast approaching. And now with the threat of a a rent increase, we are seriously contemplating ending the lease, putting all our belongings into storage and heading up north to Byron Bay or Kingscliff to live for 6 months and do something we’ve been dreaming of doing for years.

The question is “If not now, then when?”. It’s too easy to put off our dreams waiting for “the right time”. Does that right time ever come, or do we make the decision that it’s going to be right and then make it happen?

Related posts:

1. Winter has arrived in Melbourne – time to move North
2. Funerals or Birthdays – What matters more?