The Big Idea - 1 -

The Big Idea

by Jenn Lopez

The Big Idea came to my husband Edgar and I when our little one was at a girl guide camp for the day. She was gone a full 8 hours. She’s homeschooled, and my husband works from home. All fairly recent developments in our lives. It also meant that we got to have a rare conversation to ourselves without little ears listening. And she doesn’t just listen. We have our own built-in little peanut gallery. Depending on what she overhears, her reaction can either crack me up or leave me utterly frustrated. You never know if her response will be a genuine concern, a sassy comment, or a sudden subject change right in the middle of an important conversation that doesn't involve her. 

During those eight hours, we finally had time to discuss something big. It was a conversation we had put off for a while, partly out of fear and partly to shield our daughter. It was a simple but loaded question: Are we happy where we are, and if not, what do we want to do about it? 

It had been almost two years since we had moved to Ottawa, ON for work. In that time, we made friends, made a life, but still something was missing. My husband and I had always discussed traveling the world one day, but once I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, and we had our daughter and we were down to one income, that dream dwindled. We were also different people than we had been when we were making these plans in our twenties. Beautiful plans about what our lives would be like one day.

Over the years, we did have adventures and had probably moved more than the average couple but we’d move, start over, make friends, build a life and have something eventually feel like it was missing.  We’d always settled back into another location for another job and life would continue to be much the same but in a different spot.  

The Big Idea came during one of those conversations… out of nowhere I blurted…”let’s sell everything and go!! I mean you can work from anywhere, our little one is homeschooled… we don’t own anything that precious… Let's make an adventure out of it for six months." Without any hesitation, Edgar's response was an enthusiastic "YES!! Let's do it!" 

You know those moments when you say something.. And you think that's crazy, they’ll never go for it.. And then they do?!? Yeah, that moment. There’s a sudden panic that happens.Then you think to yourself... It’s ok, they said that but any minute now they’ll calm down and say yeah wouldn’t that be something and dismiss the idea. But that didn’t happen. The excitement only grew.  

Did I mean what I suggested? Yes, in the moment! But I hadn’t honestly thought much about it other than how else could we afford it. The cost of traveling for 6 months AND all the expenses that go with holding down a house made it impossible. But without holding down a house, was it possible? Maybe. Would this turn our lives upside down? Yes! And wouldn’t that be refreshing? That’s as far as that line of thought had gone.  

I got up to get a glass of water and to try and get a grip on what had just happened. Meanwhile, Edgar was already on his phone researching the price of monthly rentals in the various locations we’d always talked about traveling to. By the time I had poured us each a glass, there was a crazy wild-eyed man peering over the couch at me. While I was walking back towards the couch, he blurted it out. "We couldn’t just do this, it would be cheaper than our current monthly expenses, and by a lot."  

Further research was obviously required, but the excitement was palpable. This could actually become a reality. It was how all our previous moves had started—by making a decision, researching, and making more decisions. However, this one felt crazier and more life-changing than any before. 

My lesson that day was don’t spout wild crazy life-changing ideas to your partner who is as thirsty for an adventure as you are. Those wild, life-changing ideas might just become a reality.

Planting the Seed