I love to ski. My parents first took me to Colorado during ski season when I was 4 years old, and though I cried the first time they left me at ski school, I never looked back after the second time they left me there. Heading to the Rockies to ski has been a near annual event for the Modern Family, with a couple of years skipped because of conflicting schedules, and it appears this year is going to be one of those years.
The Modern Dad gave me a copy of Peaks Magazine he’d gotten in the mail — Peaks is basically an advertisement for all the resorts owned by Vail Associates (Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone, etc) and gets sent to you for free if Vail Associates has deviated some way to get your mailing address. This particular copy has a two-page article about people giving up their six-figure-paying careers and 5,000-square-foot homes to move to the mountains and take jobs as ski school instructors, lift operators or otherwise manually laboring.
walking down Main Street in Breckenridge, Colorado
I haven’t asked the MD if that article was the reason he gave me the magazine, but there’s a chance it might be. This is the man who has preached to me my entire life to do what makes me happy because (and this is a direct quote from him), “In the words of the great Ricky Nelson, ‘You can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself.'” I know the MD has dreamt of quitting his job and running away to the mountains, and he knows I have too. The dream rears its head from time to time, like when the work hours are long or when we actually get snow in Tennessee.
So what’s stopping me? A fiance? A mortgage? A job? These things have hardly stopped me before. Well, minus the fiance, but I’m not sure he’d be opposed to up and moving somewhere exotic and random. No, it’s the danged sense of responsibility and practicality also bestowed upon me by the Modern Parents. I don’t go because I’ve got a well-paying job that just sometimes happens to make me insane. It pays the bills, it helps us live comfortably. I don’t go because the Modern Love Machine can have his student loans paid off by the government if he sticks with teaching at his title I school for two more years. I don’t go because we’d be far away from the friends and family who are my lifeline. I don’t go because of the risk that I wouldn’t live anywhere near the level of comfort I’ve achieved and because I’d be forfeiting what traction I’ve gained in my seven years of being a career woman. (Seven?? Gasp!!) I don’t go because we’d probably have to sell the dining room table, the most expensive piece of furniture I’ve ever bought, simply because it wouldn’t fit it any kind of housing we’d be able to afford in a Colorado resort town on the kind of paychecks we’d be earning. I don’t go because for all of those things I might be giving up there’s no absolute guarantee I’d be getting the bliss I seek in return.
Why does the risk taking get so much harder with every passing year? I tell myself maybe we’ll consider something like this in a couple years once the student loans have been paid and if the housing market stays stable, but who am I kidding? It will likely be even harder to leave everything behind then. Life gets harder, major changes get scarier. But regrets get heavier too as the time passes.
Have you ever considered making a scary big change completely on your own (that was in no way prompted by a lost job or marriage or anything else that initiates big changes for us)? Did you go through with it? If so, what was the outcome? If you didn’t, why not and do you regret it?
I feel like I always comment on your posts about life stuff (ie the What Color is Your Parachute Posts: WCIYPP) but I’m all for jumping off life cliffs. Sometimes are better than others but the real thing is that there is never a great time to do something scary. Fear is fear and it doesn’t change unless you do. One time Lido and I got in a car and moved to Montana without looking back. There have been plenty of hard times since then and I’ve had my share of doubts. BUT — and this is a major but – I don’t regret it for a second. We both do work we love – that has been a super struggle but we made it happen — we are together, healthy and happy. It is really hard being away from family and friends for me but the risk was worth the reward. And the kicker is — if you do pick up your life and turn it upside down there is almost always a way to put it back together. Maybe not quite the same – but if you are smart you’ll always land on your feet. It might just not look like what you thought it would when you took the leap.
Ok..I’m stepping off my soap box now. In short though please come move to Whitefish. Montana = awesome. 🙂
I have two, maybe three, that would qualify.
After one year in college, I stumbled into studying German. (Really: this was back in the day where you literally “walked through” registration at Thompson-Boling Arena, and all the math sections I needed were filled. I wanted to take more than 3 hours in summer term to make it worth giving up my free time. The friend “walking through” with me had planned to take German, so I did too.) I ended up loving it and excelling. A few semesters later, I applied to study abroad. I honestly don’t remember how I came to the decision; I don’t recall parental prodding, and I had no close friends who’d done it. I was accepted and paid UT tuition but was sent to Friedrichs-Wilhelms Universitaet Bonn for 11 months. It was probably the best decision I have ever made in my life — yes, better than marrying my husband. If I hadn’t studied abroad, I wouldn’t have made future decisions that led me to meeting and marrying him.
Two years after returning from Germany and just after college graduation, I abruptly moved to New York City for an entry-level job, data processing at a nonprofit. I had never been to NYC before traveling there a month earlier for the interview, a trip I coincided with a visit to my best friend from college and her husband (who had moved there a few months earlier to chase their dreams). Job prospects in my field were slim. Plus, I had no idea exactly what I wanted to do. Now, I was somewhat pushed to leave Knoxville because my heart had been broken (smashed, stomped on, and shredded) by a boy I thought I was destined to marry — guess what? He got married while I was away in Germany! — so I was pretty down on Knoxville at the time. But moving to NYC for $18,000 a year could probably be considered a risk. Anyway, I did have a good circle of friends there, eventually got a decent-paying job resulting in my roommates evolving from scavenging cockroaches to rent-paying humans, and learned a lot about myself and the rest of the world in those 6 years. I amassed a decent amount of debt, but I wouldn’t trade that life experience for anything.
A few months before 9/11 I moved back to Knoxville for what was a dream job. This leap probably least qualifies as a “yes” to your question, because I was tired of living on the edge of poverty, I missed my family, and once again had had my heart hollowed out by a failed relationship. But the TN job was only loosely connected to my field of study and one in which I had no prior experience, so it was a bit of a risk. Within a year of moving back, I met my husband, fell in love with my once-scorned hometown, and have been blessed beyond measure. Had I never left here, I dare say my choices would have created a vastly different landscape for me.
Jump forward ten years to now, and all this to say: it does get harder as I get older. I don’t know if the cliff gets higher, the parachute gets smaller, or we just realize there is more to lose because we carry more in our souls. Or maybe it is something as simple as a mortgage, or meaningful as considering your life partner in your choices. But I have to really work at making life-changing decisions now. I don’t think unknown surprises are at an end for me, but I am very glad I had some doozies back in the day.
Since arriving in Asia, I have met SO many people who have done exactly that — given up big jobs, huge salaries, homes and lives to live simply in Thailand. And these are some of the absolute happiest people I have ever met.
Some work with refugees or teach needy Thais. Some are dive instructors. Some of them have built up enough freelance work to live on it full-time, though they couldn’t live on it in America. (I’m attempting the latter.)
My favorite? A forty-year-old Australian guy who lives in London. When I met him in Railay, he was wearing nothing but a pair of fisherman’s pants, long hair, pierced nipple. He lives for rock climbing. So he spends a year or two at work in London, then lives in Thailand for a year. His work? He’s an investment banker at GOLDMAN SACHS. And somehow they keep hiring him back, so he keeps working for them!
I’ve picked up and moved somewhere random a few times, but it’s always been job-motivated. It was still scary, though. I’m glad I did it, because it makes me appreciate family and friends, and I don’t think I appreciated them enough before I moved away from them for a while. I’ve got some serious wanderlust, but lately I’ve realized I can satisfy it by traveling at least once a year, not picking up and moving my whole life.
Once, I almost rooted for the Boston Red Sox. But then, I wised up. Dang responsibility.
Hmm I’ve had a few but one that always comes to mind was when I was studying overseas and walking around one day I just realized, I’m not happy in my life. So I made a change and decided to go back early and transfer schools so I could finally get what I wanted. And I’ve never regretted it, even when I had doubts.
In my mind, I often put risk and adventure up against responsibility and practicality, giving them a chance to duke it out and see who wins. My own dad has set the stage for this struggle—he’s the guy with the master’s degree in music composition who ended up working his whole career as a high school orchestra conductor. In many ways he really loved the work, and he was well-suited to teach and mentor, but in other ways he has always lived with that lingering “what if”—what if he had taken the less practical, stable route, and moved to Hollywood to write movie scores, or to New York to write symphonies.
Yes, on the surface it’s that “danged sense of responsibility and practicality,” as you put it, but it’s also a whole lot more. You went right from that place to the importance of having a home you love, and being near to friends and family. Those aren’t just practical choices, they’re at the heart of who you are. You’re not just playing it safe, you’re making hard choices based on what you love.
I can totally relate to this (and apparently so can everyone else.) I actually have uprooted and gone and lived that Rocky Mountain resort town existence, albeit only for 6 months at a time (x4), but those tastes only reinforced my desire. Problem is, as you point out, the family attachments and everything else that make it difficult to stay away.
I have not but changes do start to get harder as you get older. the responsibilities and all of the adult decisions make you think twice and three times before doing anything risky.
Oh wow, I totally identify! When J and I first got together, we were looking into moving to a teeny tiny little town in Montana to get jobs with a company that does inline skate tours (prior to me breaking my tailbone while skating). And it seemed so doable. And when we bought our house, it was absolutely a starter home – we were only going to live here for five years. But now, seven years later, even moving across town seems like the hugest freaking hassle. It’s amazing how the life we acquire makes it harder and harder to change.