With starting fresh in a new place, there is the mundane like setting up bills and new doctors. Then there is looking for your new favorite places and making new friends. There is really so much to settling in a new city.
Three years ago we moved from living 10+ years in a rural town to Springfield, OR. The move was actually the least dramatic thing that happened that year. The first year I didn't expect to make any new friends because it used to take me a while to warm up to people. I met a really sweet, outgoing woman who asked me to be a part of an indoor play group and to help her on the board of directors. Her name was Ashley and I have her to thank for getting me involved in my community and getting to know people in a context that suited me well. I really wasn't that outgoing back then.
Serving others is where I am most comfortable meeting people. Since then I've done a lot of leadership training and found I can be my introverted self and still enjoy people in my own way. I don't put pressure on myself to be outgoing any more, and I give myself more grace and patience than I used to. I take the little accomplishments and don't beat myself up for not going too far out of my comfort zone.
Rebooting means starting over with friendships, lifestyle and patterns. That means finding ways to keep in touch with meaningful friendships from afar. What I now see is so much opportunity to be more intentional about our life patterns. There were some things I wanted to change before we moved, but they were difficult to change because we were kind of stuck in certain patterns. Having to create new patterns is a great time to start fresh and plan ways we can improve.
I have never been a fan of new years resolutions. I think if you want to make resolutions, make them and stick to them when they occur to you. However, I too have been feeling stuck sometimes because patterns are hard to break and new patterns are hard to start. When you HAVE TO start new patterns, it's a great time to make sure they are patterns you want!
What do you do to start new patterns of behavior (when you aren't in a post-move situation)?
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Below are some pictures from our first trip to the local indoor park. The kids had such a great time that they both had long naps this afternoon. Even my eldest who has grown out of daily naps.
