Fitness, rehab and weight loss are themes of this blog, but all of those can be tied to personal growth.  I’ve wrote about my experiences here with the struggle, the goals and my progress to accomplish them.  I’ve felt growth moments through all of that.  Wins in my life change my outlook and motivate me to continue to grow, in all areas..  You don’t grow through comfort, you grow during discomfort.  Some growth opportunities can be flat out scary. 

Prior to my daughter’s birth, Rachel and I moved into a 2,800 square foot house with 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.  It was on a cul-de-sac with amazing neighbors who quickly became friends.  I had man-cave dream that I was able to fulfill:  a sports bar with multiple TVs throughout the room and walls plastered with Dallas Cowboys memorabilia.  The move also coincided with the beginning of my 92 pound weight loss journey.  I purchased a treadmill and some weights for my home gym.  And to top of all that, it had a 3 car garage equipped with a beer fridge and big screen TV.  We were in a quiet neighborhood on the outskirts of town.  We we’re smack dab in suburbia.  I was living the dream. 

5 bedrooms?  What was I thinking???  I thought we would have a second child at some point, so that justified 3 bedrooms.  As a computer geek, I was already used to having one bedroom of my house utilized as an office.  So that justified 4 bedrooms…in mind anyways.  And of course, we assumed we needed a spare bedroom to use as a guest room.

Six years later… my office was rarely used as I generally sit on the couch or kitchen table with my laptop.  Wasted room.  We never had a second child, so that bedroom wasn’t needed.  The guest room was used briefly by friends who were in a “life transition” and needed a place to crash for a while.  That was many years prior, though.  We only hosted an out of town guest one time.  Three bedrooms were not utilized in that house.  Sure, one bedroom evolved into a playroom which meant it was also easier to accumulate extra toys.  If there are more places to house toys, you don’t notice what isn’t being used.  The extra space also meant it was harder to see how badly we were spoiling our daughter.

It made no sense to be in that house.

Beyond size, there was extra expense.  Why are we paying so much for square footage that is hardly used?  We spend 90% of our time in 40% of our space.  Like most people, our mortgage was our largest expense.  Living in suburbia involved shelling out extra money taxes as well.  Large houses cost more to maintain while also paying more for utilities.

Most of my daily commutes between 2002 and 2018 were at least 30 minutes…in little Wichita, KS.  It increased a few minutes each year, with my average commute home taking 40 minutes.

Every job has some sort of stress level.  We all have bills to pay.  As men, our internally processed, life identity is tied closely to our career.  We’re wired to succeed so we can support our families.  Many of us are also wired to keep up with the Joneses.  I certainly was when purchasing this house.  Our stress levels can increase when we think of what would happen if that paycheck went away.  As time went on, I started seeing this as a stress tax.  My desire to live in the big house with extra toys also required me to worry about maintaining my current standard of living. 

We were paying the bills.  We were putting money into savings every month and our retirement accounts grew every payday…but….so much expense was going towards wasted space while spending to too much time maintaining the house.  At one point we hired a housekeeper because we were too busy to keep up with all of the cleaning.  Plus that long commute. 

We decided we needed to make a change.

A drastic change.

Not only would we downsize, but we would downsize into a location that would elevate our true quality of life. 

Rachel’s cousin lives in a quaint, urban neighborhood right outside of downtown Wichita.  It is within walking distance to many restaurants, retail, coffee shops and breweries.  Ten years ago I would have told you that the neighborhood did not meet my personal standards.  I felt it was in a high crime area with beat up houses and yards that were not maintained.  Some houses looked like they needed to be bulldozed.  College Hill is an affluent neighborhood adjacent to this neighborhood with some of the nicest houses in Wichita.  But this neighborhood….it’s nicknamed by the locals as “College Hood”.  With that said, I’ve seen the neighborhood evolve over the years.  Houses are being improved and yards are getting cleaned up.  It still had a long way to go, but it was not the same neighborhood that it used to be.  Property values were also increasing. 

Downtown Wichita and the surrounding area has exploded over the past few years.  I feel like the community’s pride for this city is at an all-time high.  It’s an amazing area with some of the best restaurants I’ve ever ate at and cultural events almost every weekend.  Wichita has an arena is downtown that hosts all the big-time concerts with a new baseball stadium opening up in April to host our new minor league team.  Downtown Wichita has more life than it ever.

Rachel’s cousin and husband are our best friends.  Their daughters are our daughter’s best friends.

This is where we wanted to be.  It had to be this neighborhood.

Could I be happy in a small house?  What about my space?  Houses are so old without functional basements in this part of town.  Very few houses have garages and those that do are small and detached.  I could go on and on about all of the small conveniences that we would lose.  I was very scared to make this change and most nervous about the location.  I was excited about what I could gain, but my comfort zone is suburbia.  I’ve always lived in it, as long as I can remember.  As an adult, I lived in Omaha, NE and Lawton, OK for brief periods of time, but of course, in the suburbs.  I’ve lived in the Wichita area for 38 years, either suburbs or close to it.  (And if you’re familiar with Wichita, I’ve lived in Derby, Sedgwick, Newton and Valley Center.  All of my years living within Wichita city limits were west of Ridge Rd or east of Greenwich.)  City limit suburbia. 

We looked at houses for a year.  We started to plan our downsize but we could never find the right house.  Throughout the process I doubted whether I’d really pull the trigger if we did find a house that met our needs.  They were all too big or too small.  We had all but given up when the next school season started and then *THE* house hit the market in October 2018.  A small, house with a total of 1,100 square feet.  It only had 2 bedrooms and 1 ½ bathrooms.  As a bonus, the house was located only 4 houses down the street from Rachel’s cousin.  Wow.

We made an offer.  It was accepted.  Boom, this is really happening.  Shoot, we need to get our old house on the market and sell it.  And move.  Maybe one day I will write about “what not to do when downsizing”.  I almost feel like our experience was created by the writers of “National Lampoon’s Vacation”.  We’d do everything different in hindsight.  While moving, we also had to finish minimalizing our possessions.  We needed to get rid of 65% of everything we owned to make this work.  All told, we got rid of much more—probably closer to 80%. 

We finally got through it all after Thanksgiving weekend 2018.  Just like that, I was living in “College Hood”.

And just like that, the quality of our life improved in many ways:

• Our daughter is an only child but she gets to see her cousins all the time now.  She doesn’t have siblings but those two cousins the closest thing to it.  (They even fight like it, LOL).  I’ve always lived several states away from cousins and love the fact that my daughter gets to grow up right next to them.  4 houses down.
• I have a $431 a month mortgage that will be paid off in 8 years.
• My taxes have dropped 75%.
• My utilities have dropped 35%.
• My homeowner’s insurance has dropped by 40%.
• I have security in knowing that I could make significantly less and still pay our bills.
• My commute is 12-15 minutes each way.  Gasoline expenses have dropped by $30 a week.  I have an extra 2 ½  hours at home each week instead of being stuck in a car.
• Latchkey expenses have dropped by 70% and our daughter spends less time there since we have shorter commutes.
• We can clean the house in 1/3 of the time it used to take.  Yard work is more like 1/5 of the time.
• We feel like our house has identity and character, not one of many cookie cutter houses.  We’re more proud of it than our previous home.
• We’re right in the heart of the community.  We are 4 blocks from a trolley stop that we can use on the weekends that will take us downtown and beyond.  I can walk the same distance to grab an electronic scooter if I want.
• We’ve walked or taken a free trolley to dozens of city events since moving that were close by.  I used to pass on these events because I didn’t want to “drive across town again”.
• We searched for a church close to our house and found an amazing one.  Our new church is less than 2 blocks from our house, on the same street we live on.  We don’t drive to church, we walk together.  It’s amazing.
• We’ve only dined at national/chain restaurants when invited by others.  We have some of the best restaurants you’ll ever try within walking distance or a 5 minute drive. 
• We’ve supported local business more than any other year living in Wichita.
• We see each other a lot more.  We’re not so spread out all over the place.  I feel like I see my family much more than I used to.
• We’re within minutes to the most central interchange in this city, allowing us to go almost anywhere within 15 minutes.
• Downsizing allowed us to teach our daughter that life isn’t about possessions.  She had to decide which toys to keep and which to get rid of.  We restrain what she can bring in the house.  She’s starting to catch on to these life lessons that we could never teach at the old place.
• We’re happier.  Quality of life improved.
• We haven’t once missed our old house or felt too crowded. 
• We don’t miss the possessions that were eliminated.
• The stress tax has been eradicated from our lives.

This taught me something I already knew but had to experience:  do more scary stuff.  If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do what you haven’t been willing to do in the past.  I have a few scary things planned for 2020.  Standby.

Go get it.