My husband and I are in the middle of a move and I’ve started a short #AMstorytime series about all the highs, the lows and the reflections of this change over on my Instagram page.
In my opinion, the online world needs a little more real and a lot less of only showing the perfect side of things. As always, I try and make my all of my posts a little more infused with truths about what life really looks like. #Realstagram wins!
For those of you that don’t use the app, the short story series is below and I will keep adding to it as this move unfolds.
Today when I write this we are currently out of the little home that we lived in for the last 4+ years and staying at my in-laws as the renovations are being completed at our new home. So it’s a time of lots of change, lots of reflecting and lots of excitement!
I’ll be sharing more of the renovation in a mini-vlog series very soon! For now I hope you enjoy this Story Time Series. You can also see the posts at @angelamcnally on my Instagram.
AS SEEN ON @angelamcnally
#AMSTORYTIME | MOVING PART 1 –
Reflecting
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4 years. The longest I’ve been in a home since I was 16 years old. And packing it up this weekend is bringing up so many feelings.
Before this home I lived in 16 others in 17 years. I called myself a gypsy to be cute and pretend I was okay with it. But really I was always feeling unsettled and deeply unsupported and unloved.
Then I met Anthony and a year later we moved in together. My whole world changed for the best, but also huge parts of me died.
For the first time since I was a kid I felt safe and settled in a home. Like a tiny family who said ‘I’m here for you’ – and actually meant it.
And this love showed me how much shit I put up with to try and even come close to this kind of love with others in my life.
So, I cut myself off from a lot of the world over the last 4 years. Not intentionally. But to heal, I think. To basque in what unconditional love really feels like and learn how to trust it and be comfortable with it.
Which you think would just be this blissful, easy thing – but if all you’ve ever known was the opposite, it’s hard work.
I think parts of us need to die in order for who we really are to be born.
I’m so grateful for every home, my deeply instilled independence and resilience and my intuition that always knows who to distance myself from.
My gypsy life was also the best life for me to become who I am – and I am so appreciative for it.
I’m so excited for my 17th home in 17 years.
Today I reflect and send gratitude for all the healthy and beautiful love in my life. It’s been a long road.
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If things are hard for you right now, I want you to know it’s all going to be worth it. Life is strengthening your resilience muscle for a reason. Trust me, but more importantly, trust life. It knows what it’s doing.
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Packing, reflecting and wishing you the happiest and most love filled weekends!
AS SEEN ON @angelamcnally
#AMSTORYTIME | MOVING PART 2 –
Foundation
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This past weekend we officially said goodbye to 4201.
Our little 600-something square foot apartment found 42 stories above the ground was the foundation for starting our lives together.
This little piece of sky was our first home and a place of so many beautiful times and successes, and equally as many hard times and failures.
Anthony actually proposed to me inside the bedroom, and little did I know there were 70 of our friends and family in the restaurant below the building waiting to celebrate. Another thing many people don’t know is literally moments after being proposed to, one of my biggest clients had to let me go because the company had folded.
Because isn’t that just life?
It’s a series of ups and downs, ecstasy and pain. It’s finding a place to be stable enough to just accept whatever life has to throw at you. For us, this was that place.
We both started our own businesses working from home inside these walls. We planned our wedding and the honeymoon of our dreams. We hosted extremely tight family gatherings, parties with our friends and anyone in need of a place to sleep in TO on our trusty pull-put couch.
We had life-altering health diagnoses. We got on health routines and became work out buddies. We had the highest of highs finding out we were pregnant with our first child, and shortly after the devastating low of miscarrying. This place was the stable ground that let it all unfold.
Most importantly it was in these tight quarters that we learned how to communicate better than either of us ever had before. In my opinion, the single trait that keeps us such a strong couple through it all.
I loved our little ‘zen den’ as we affectionately called it. It was the first place life could throw me the good and the bad – and I could stay steady knowing “it’s all okay.”
Our families always say to us “if you can make it 4 years together in this little 1+den, run businesses from home and always be together – you can make it anywhere.”
And we can.
I’m forever grateful for the life foundation we laid in this home – it shaped my life with my best friend forever.
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