Big People, Tiny House

Tiny house family

Tiny House with Kids

Farewell 2022!

Val

December 31, 2022

So I saw this article about slingshots a month or so ago and it seemed an apt metaphor for where we’re at as our family shifts from this calendar year to the next. I am currently teaching 8 and 9 year olds, so slingshots during our nature walks have been a constant request that I felt needed some research. Anyway, the part of the article that stood out in this context was less “is this considered a weapon at school” and more about physics, specifically about potential elastic energy vs. kinetic energy at different phases of a slingshot’s launch. A person gets their handhold right, makes sure the little stone is tucked in, eyes their target, pulls the bands back tautly, aims, aaaaannnnnndddd… that’s where I feel like I’m leaving 2022.

Magic wands, family, and the powerful Pacific’s display of kinetic and potential energy. Over and over and over again.

Now that I’m here reviewing this year, it seems like “potential elastic energy” as a concept can really sum up our year. We started with some pretty hazy plans about our next steps but it wasn’t until visiting an AirBnB the size of the average American house in February that I realized I still very much liked living tiny. It feels so much better for me to be in close proximity with my family… honestly, it just felt weird to be in one room yet not be able to hear and talk to each other no matter where the other person was.

Blurry photo from the loft, spying Santa Lucia preparing for my festive 6 am wake up call.

So instead of moving forward with vague, ever-changing plans to build a larger house, add an addition, or set up the largest yurts money could buy, we finally settled on the idea of moving our house as-is over to the property we purchased a few years ago. We also planned to expand our living arrangements to include a part time liveaboard sailboat that will lend itself to little adventures even while we are continuing our day-to-day lives. All of this— the setting up our property, the moving, the boat buying and outfitting, are tasks schemed up in 2022 (the slingshot gets pulled back a little farther with each conversation and decision) and then SNAP! will hopefully come shooting to fruition in 2023. May our aim be true!

Though the real image would be us fumbling with the slingshot for multiple months, getting it tangled, facing it in the wrong direction several times, and then (finally) getting it set up and aimed correctly towards our target.

But honestly it does feel daunting to start this next year with numerous high-stakes projects— the anxiety-prone among us tend to want to creep into a blanket cave and hibernate when the to-do list gets too long or the decisions feel too drastic. Alas, there won’t be much time for that. We’ll just have to take it a step at a time and be sure to each develop a new (healthy) balance to support these (life changing/ life giving) projects in addition to parenting, teaching, and working. Shabbat is going to be very necessary this coming year, I think!