Dreaming of Home

What is your dream home?

Perhaps it is a new-world mansion with old-world charm?

Or perhaps an urban Brownstone?

A New England Colonial? Or Colonial Revival?

A rustic Log Cabin in the mountains?

A rambling Ranch in the suburbs?

 A Southwestern beneath the pastel desert skies?

A storybook board and batten Tudor?

An elaborate and colorful Victorian?

Or a modern farmhouse?

(this looks like Colonial Revival)

This is the backyard and farmland to the home above

and it is what I dream of.  LAND!

This post isn't actually about a "house" but about "home" and what that means to me.  I feel like I am chasing home and can't seem to catch it.  

After Leonard returned from his mission in France, he felt very strongly influenced by the Holy Ghost to change his major to International Relations.  We were either engaged, or almost engaged at that time and I remember him coming over to my house and talking to me about it.  He dreamed of becoming a diplomat and I dreamed of becoming a diplomat's wife.  We were young 21 year-olds with visions of traveling the globe in our eyes.  We dreamed of living on every continent and traveling home to visit our 3 extended families each summer.

Six years later (after a year spent in England earning a Master's degree) he was offered his dream job of being a Canadian diplomat, and I finally got to do my dream job of being a stay-at-home mom.  Kaleb and Noé were just 6 months old when we moved away from all of our family, friends, and homes in the western US to live in Ottawa, Ontario.

The first 7 years of his career were a dream.  We spent 3 years in Ottawa and made many great friends that became our adopted family since we were living so far from our own families.  After that we went on our first posting to Taipei, Taiwan for 4 years.  Of course, every place has its quirks and I did get homesick, but overall we had a wonderful time there.  We were excited to move back to Ottawa and re-charge our batteries with North American comforts before heading off on another adventure.  We thought we'd be back for about 3 years again, but that dragged out to SEVEN years.  I can't express enough how much we truly love our friends in Ottawa.  They are some of the best people in the world and they have touched our hearts so that they will always be a part of our circle of loved ones.  And Ottawa is a lovely city.  But it was so very hard on me living there for 7 years.  The winters there are very cold and they last closer to 6 months, than just 3 months.  The hardest part is that we are so very far away from our extended families there.  Our goal was to go home each summer, but as our little family grew and our finances stayed the same we could only afford to go home every 2-3 years.

The last time we all went "home" was in the summer of 2014.  We went on a huge road-trip across the US and Canada.  We got to visit all 3 of our extended families and all of our "homes" in Alberta, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah. 

I just looked over my blog for the entire time that we've been in India.  I thought if someone was reading this that didn't know me, they'd probably think I lived a "picture perfect" life.  Now don't get me wrong, I live an extremely BLESSED life and I am so grateful for the bounteous blessings I so undeservedly have.  If only my blessings could make me feel happy, instead of so much heartache.  I have suffered from depression since I was about 15 years old.  I never wanted to talk about it to anyone though.  I felt like it was my dirty little secret and admitting that I struggled would be a sign of weakness.  I just tried to always do my best and keep moving forward.  More recently I've realized that keeping it inside is not helping me or others.  I have greatly benefited from others sharing their own battles with mental illness and maybe by sharing my own challenges it can help someone else.

I have never been clinically diagnosed with depression, I just know how it feels inside my body.  I did talk a little bit to my family doctor over our last year before our move to India.  I always thought my bouts of depression were from circumstances, not from a chemical imbalance.  One thing my doctor told me was that circumstantial depression can cause a chemical imbalance.  When you are constantly stressed your body pumps out extra adrenaline and cortisol.  Having these extra hormones in your system for long periods of time leads to a chemical imbalance.

Moving to India was a dream, but it has been so much harder than we ever thought it would be to actually live here day-to-day.  I find myself  constantly daydreaming of running away and running to "home" wherever that is.  

Lately, I feel like I have more anxiety than depression (although I do still have black days when all I can do is curl up in a ball and watch netflix as the characters in my shows seem to be the only friends I have).  I go to bed each night completely exhausted, but I haven't slept through the night for as long as I can remember (even when my kids do!).  I wake up in the middle of the night with my heart-racing and a thousand horrible thoughts running through my head.  I worry something bad will happen to my children, or my husband, or me and I just cannot turn off the fear.  During the day, I always have a huge bundle of butterflies in my stomach, even when I can't think of a "real" reason for having them there.  I constantly feel like I could just vomit up all of my nerves.  I think I am slightly agoraphobic and I may have a dependent personality disorder (as I feel I am a different person when Leonard is home, he helps me feel safe). 

I think this anxiety is my mid-life crisis.  We're almost half-way to Leonard's retirement (more than 14 years done, less than 16 left).  But I feel like his job is a pair of golden handcuffs.  I feel so grateful for his job that provides for our large family and that it has a retirement package.  In today's day-and-age of financial instability I am very grateful for the security his job provides.  However, I also feel so trapped.  I recently read an anonymous quote that said, "No one can go back and have a new beginning, but everyone can start today and have a new ending."  I want a new ending so badly, but I don't know how to achieve that.  I don't want to spend another 16 years in Ottawa or abroad far from our families in the western US.   

I do dream of living in France, since Leonard served his mission there.  I also dream of us giving up our bi-national status of being an American-Canadian family and emigrating to New Zealand.

In my heart though, I would rather live west of the Rocky Mountains in either British Columbia, Alberta, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, or even Hawaii  :).  Instead of living abroad and visiting family,  I want to live by family, then we can travel abroad.  I want to have a permanent home where we live each school year, then in the summers we could visit a new country when our savings are big, or we can visit the beach, Disneyland, and a new temple when our savings are little (I know I dream big!).

Another big dream in my heart is to live somewhere so we can have 2 more babies.  Health Canada recommends I do NOT give birth here in India.  Everyone thinks I am crazy for wanting more children, but that just hurts my heart.  This dream has been a part of me for as long as I can remember, since I was a little girl.  I feel we are so close- 6 out of 8 kiddos is 75%, we're almost there!  However, I want them to join our family before Kaleb and Noé graduate from high school, so that only gives us 3 more years.  I want Leonard and I to decide if we'll have more children or not, I don't want Health Canada making the decision for us.

I wish we could go back in time and prepare for something different.  Leonard and I have talked a lot about raising bees and having a flower nursery.  We could sell the honey and flowers and have a life our whole family could work together at.  We've also dreamed of writing and illustrating children's books together.  It is easy to dream, it's a lot harder earning a living at doing what you love.

Soon enough we'll have grandchildren of our own (I hope!) and I want to live close to them.  I want to know them.  I have deprived my parents from knowing their grandkids, but I desperately want to live close to my own!

I really wish I could kick this fear to the curb.  I wish my faith was strong enough to conquer it.  When my earth life is finished I long to return to the Celestial Kingdom to live with my earthly and heavenly families for eternity.  Now I dream of Jesus Christ returning to the earth and living during his peaceful and glorious millennial reign.  No one knows when He will return to the earth though, and I don't want to waste my life wishing for something else.  I want to enjoy the here and now.  I hope I can find "home" and have peace.

This post is random and awkward.  I just have so much tension inside me and I desperately want to get it out.  Basically, I dream of having our own "forever" home.  I want to live close to our 3 extended families.  I want to have 2 more babies of my own.  I want my children to live close to us when they are grown, so I can be near them and my grandbabies too.  I would like to travel the world still, but I would give up that dream in a heartbeat to find home.  Every dream can be accomplished, but at a sacrifice.  To see the world we have sacrificed seeing our families.  I want to flip that and see our families and sacrifice our travels.