The Loneliness of Downsizing and Starting Over

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- Welcome to A Downsized Life.

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I'm your host, Danny Brown.

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And in the winter of 2019, my wife and I moved our family

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from a sprawling city in Southern Ontario, Canada

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to a small town three hours north.

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This podcast is about our journey to downsizing our lives.

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Lessons learned, successes earned,

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and everything in between.

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If you're looking to downsize your life,

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then join us and listen for free at downsizepod.com or wherever you relax with podcasts.

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This week I want to talk about something I don't think gets spoken about often enough,

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and that's the loneliness that can be felt when downsizing and starting over.

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Now, this doesn't necessarily mean the kind of loneliness you are completely off grid,

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or have no friends or left family and all you know behind, although now that I hear

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myself saying that, it doesn't exactly make it sound like we're not experiencing that.

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But we're not. It's more about the loneliness of simple things that you may have taken for granted or maybe didn't put as much thinking into before the move.

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Now in fairness, neither my wife or I were really the social butterflies that other couples can be prior to our move.

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We would look to try and entertain guests where possible at our previous home.

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This might be inviting neighbours or friends over for the summer barbeque, or going to visit family for a dinner and catch up.

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It might even be something as simple as one of our kids having a playdate, and so we'd meet up with the kids' friends and their parents and socialise that way.

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Sometimes it might just even be a work drink with a colleague.

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Or taking my son to the occasional Toronto FC soccer game with my good friend Sam.

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For my wife, Jaclyn, she might have a Zoom meeting with friends, or perhaps just go for a walk.

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Basically, there was a bunch of little things that we could do fairly easily

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because they were all reasonably close to where we lived.

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Now, not so much.

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While our new neighbours have been nothing but friendly since we moved here,

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it's not quite at the stage where we're attending social events at each other's homes.

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Yes, our kids do have play dates, but the cold means that these are indoor ones.

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So the small beach in the village and the park in the village, all that will have to wait until the warmer weather's here.

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There's no after work drink with a colleague, as I'm 80% remote, with the office three hours away in downtown Toronto.

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And Jaclyn's Zoom classes are no more, unless she was to drive two and a half hours south every week.

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Some of this is dictated by the cold weather and the fact that we're moved here in the winter.

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And it's always easier to socialise when you're outdoors and where other people are.

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And yes, we could probably find replacements for some of the Zoom classes or similar in one of the larger towns that are nearby,

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but it's just the convenience of stepping out of the house and having a host of things to do that you could walk to.

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Missing that is definitely a change.

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Although, one of the biggest reasons we chose to downsize and start over was to get away from the noise of the city.

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Traffic, sirens, and the hustle and bustle of people in a rush to be somewhere unimportant.

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Now, I'm sure some people did have a life and death meeting to get to,

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but otherwise it's just a case of getting sucked into this mindset that everything is super important and we have to be there yesterday.

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Additionally, the city we moved to, Burlington, to raise a family was becoming like the city we moved away from, Toronto, because it was too loud.

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Lots of condos going up, lots of digital advertising display signs. It just seemed a small Toronto.

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So it was definitely the right time to move.

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However, one thing I think we weren't expecting was just how quiet it is up here and how dark.

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Where our new home is, there's maybe 8 houses on the street, spread out over a good stretch.

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There's a sizeable distance between our home and our neighbours.

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And not the 5ft space that we've been used to in a city life.

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So this, coupled with the fact that there's maybe one street light that lights a whole street, and the nights are really dark.

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When we're looking at our backyard, we can maybe see the front half of our deck, then the rest are just pitch black.

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That makes it feel as if you're isolated more than you actually are, and increases that feeling of loneliness.

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Well, except for the fact that we clearly have a whole herd of animals crossing our yard every night giving the amount of tracks in the snow.

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Now I realise that this makes it sound that it is isolated and lonely but nothing could be further from the truth.

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Jaclyn's mentioned numerous times that this is something she definitely needed, probably more than she realised

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and I can see the changes in her and how this move has benefited her.

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Our kids are extremely happy and while they still miss their old life and friends,

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they've more than made up for it with new friends here and new playdates.

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Ewan has a new soccer team and Salem's got a gymnastics group and she's talking about doing competitive gymnastics

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so all of that adds to their existence and happiness.

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And for me, while I can't just have a quick pint with one of my friends after work

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It does make any trips I take back to the city that little bit more special.

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And besides, loneliness can be a state of mind determined by how we view it at the time.

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Some of the best moments can come from loneliness.

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Seeing a family of deer walk across the road in front of you is just incredible,

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just to watch them go about their merry way and not have a care in the world.

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Hearing the sounds of blue jays from the trees in the front and back yard,

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singing a merry song which is really, really relaxing.

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And most of all, looking at what looks like a million stars in the sky,

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which is made easier by the blackness of the yard and lack of city lights.

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So yes, there might be less of a social aspect of a result of downsizing and starting over,

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but it just means there's a new social life waiting to be found.

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It might just take until the warm weather arrives, but that's okay.

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The extended family time that myself, Jaclyn, Ewan and Salem are enjoying is

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something that I will happily take in exchange. Until the next time, live happily.

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If you enjoy A Downsized Life be sure to share it with friends and

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family and others who might enjoy it too and we'll see you next time.