Charlotte Cummings

I felt really accepted within this community.

I had great relationships and I loved it.

But for a variety of reasons, it was the right thing for us to do to move towns.

I was absolutely terrified.

I was terrified of letting go of all those relationships and all of that stability.

I cried when I told the barista.

I have a home coffee machine because I'm reasonable with my money to not be going to buy a coffee every day.

But I cried when I was saying goodbye to this barista.

I was like, this is terribly tragic for me that I feel so deeply sad about that.

And

I think for me, letting go of familiarity, of a base level of acceptance as I moved around in my life.

And you'll know what it's like with little kids.

Like you live in a little kind of triangle between kindy in the supermarket and your house.

So I kind of knew everyone everywhere.

And I did like that.

That worked for me on some level emotionally.

And we downgraded.

We moved to a house that had threadbare carpet, that had ugly blue walls, that kind of smelled a little bit funky.

But what we decided was the most financially savvy thing for us to do was to keep the old house.

to rent it out and to buy something kind of further down the ladder.