The Year of the Wait: Our Chaotic Journey to a Slower Life | Week 31 - Post layoff

We’ve been calling 2025 the "Year of the Wait." You know the feeling, right? It's that messy, chaotic, in-between stage of a big life change. The year started with us deciding to sell a house we thought we were keeping after my layoff, and it quickly turned into a journey of waiting—waiting for showings, waiting on closing, and now, waiting in a rental for our new tiny home to arrive. There's stuff in boxes, stuff in storage, and nothing feels truly settled. It’s been almost a year of this kind of chaos.

But as we sit here waiting, we’re starting to see that even the chaotic parts are teaching us how to live a slower life. It's not like we really have a choice, with so many aspects of this transition being completely outside of our control. Sometimes you learn the most in situations where you aren't in control.

The Chaos of the In-Between

"Patience is not simply the ability to wait—it's how we behave while we're waiting." -Joyce Meyer

There’s a lot we didn't expect about this transition. We sold our house so we wouldn't have to wait to live fuller lives by working less because, let's face it, we're not the type of folks who will ever truly retire. Now we've been living lots of other kinds of waiting, currently waiting in a tiny rental, trying to figure out where everything is. It’s a strange feeling, living in limbo. At one point, we had three separate storage units scattered across the metroplex, all of them at the mercy of spring weather and the possibility of leaks. Then came the wait for the estate sale, the appraisal, and all the other closing-related tasks. We don't have furniture for our new tiny home so we’re waiting to order it until we can get in there, measure, and figure out what we truly need.

The Reward for the Wait

This week also brought some huge wins that made all the waiting worth it. We signed our closing papers for our new tiny house and officially paid for it in full using the proceeds from the sale of our traditional house. This helped us tremendously with our goal of downsizing our expenses.

We're becoming active members of our new community with added perks like free community garden watermelons, tomatoes and peppers!

Conclusion

Yes, 2025 has been a chaotic year of waiting. But it's also been the year that we finally got to start taking back our time, which has been the biggest gift of this journey so far. Now that we have our own tiny house on the way, we're really hoping that we can start moving in at the end of August so we can continue settling in to this community where we're starting to feel at home.

If you're also in a chaotic period and looking for tools to help you find your peace, our newsletter is for you. This week, we're sharing an exclusive list of books on intentional living and a non-traditional path that helped us reframe this chaotic period as an opportunity for growth.

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-Kathy & Bryan