Montana: A Soft Place To Land

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. ”

— Henry David Thoreau

Been thinking a lot and writing a little. January feels like a decade ago. In less than 10 days, we made a decision to quit everything we’d given our life to for the past 7 years, sold almost all of our belongings, put everything else in storage, and hopped on a plane. We found a soft place to land—10 acres in Columbia Falls, Montana. 30 minutes from Glacier National Park. A lifetime away from the hustle and the grind and the ever moving target of “making it”.

Everyone thought we were crazy for leaving. Even us.

But we spent the next 3 months playing in the snow, building fires, drinking daring amounts of espresso, staying up late watching cult documentaries. We prioritized sleeping in and sledding in the snow. We put our phones on do-not-disturb and watched our kids chase deer around the front yard.

We were finally living a life we’d dreamt about- this was always the plan. But we were never quite ready. Always waiting. Needing to hit that next big goal. Needing to make x amount of dollars. Then we could rent an airbnb for a month, turn our phones off, give our kids a wild adventure— or even just be parents who were fully present. A life where family time is more than just phones faced down at the dinner table.

We didn’t hit the big goal. We didn’t make x amount of dollars. But we did make the hard decision- that was actually the easiest decision.

We chose more time with our family over making more money. And it is a decision I will never regret.

After 3 months in paradise (we lovingly refer to this season as “The Great Montana Reset”), we decided to stay a little longer. We bought a travel trailer and have been “glamping” in Montana since May. Blaise has friends out here who he has known for over 20 years. Friends who have time for each other (something we are not used to having.) One day, we were driving and a stranger told us our car sounded funny- like a lug nut was rolling around in the tire. Blaise called his friend. Within 10 minutes we were in his driveway and he was taking the hubcaps off and fixed the issue. As we drove away, I told Blaise how unfamiliar and amazing that simple experience was- to be driving on dirt roads with mountains on both sides and pull into a friends driveway who has the time— or maybe he doesn’t have the time but he has the willingness and he makes the time to help you out. Another time, we were picking up our mail from a friend’s house (shout out to everyone who is receiving our mail since we currently have no physical home address). They were outside about to grill chicken and veggies over an open campfire and asked us to stay. We obliged. Our kids ran around with theirs, picking wild flowers, shooting a bow and arrow, pulling each other around in a wagon. I didn’t have any cell service and we sat around the fire for hours talking about our past, our families, our dreams and non-income related goals. They brought out coffee with raw heavy cream from a farm the next town over, and we stayed a few more hours not leaving until well after midnight. As we drove away, I told Blaise how good it felt to have zero plans but the freedom to all of the sudden say yes to a spontaneous dinner, focused conversations, and coffee at 10pm. I had flashbacks to our previous life where Blaise’s phone was blowing up until 11pm at night and if he wasn’t on a call, he was checking a message. Even planned gatherings, we were not a lot of fun- having a conversation with us was probably very… annoying. Blaise would have to step out for a call mid-convo. I’d be on my own— keeping my 2 eyes on all 3 kids. “Yes, I want to hear more about your first time baking sourdough and thanks for opening up to me about your traumatic childhood but also how attached are you to that springy door stop thing that makes the funny noise when you pluck it? Because it is no longer attached to the wall and my one year old is chewing on it. Is that okay? Should we leave?” Some of this is of course just #momlife but it was definitely compounded with our always on call work schedule.

To be fair, this is not an indictment on our South Carolina friends or even on hard work, but an indictment on us. Writing this I remember my neighbor and dear friend Meghan, when I told her we were leaving for Montana in a week, she cried. She of course didn’t want us to go. And we gave no one, including ourselves, time to mentally or emotionally prepare for such a major life change. But she helped in ways I wouldn’t have thought to ask. We were stressed- packing and moving and trying to figure out how to honorably and respectfully tell everyone in our professional world that we couldn’t be their go-to-guy any longer. I was frozen in our living room staring at everything we owned knowing good and well there was no way we’d be out of this house in a week. Meghan spent the next 7 days selling our sectional couch, dining table, beds, rugs, espresso machine and everything else you can think of on Facebook Marketplace. She made the listings, set the pricing, scheduled the pickup- everything. And she, on her own, cleared out our house in a matter of days. It was honestly amazing and I told her she should make some sort of business out of this talent. Our friend and her husband, Jarred helped load and move the things I couldn’t part with into a truck and to our already overflowing storage unit. We didn’t ask him to, he just saw us outside and walked over and started loading stuff up. My other neighbor and friend, Peggy, pulled out her entire closet and gave me multiple pairs of ski-pants, base layers and all sorts of snow clothes that helped me survive our first few months in Montana. Our other friends Micah and Lindsey came by on our last day, they brought us lunch from our favorite Mexican restaurant and loaded up last minute furniture and boxes while the kids played 4 corners in an almost empty house.

I cried to Blaise. It was an emotional week. Not just because we were leaving the best neighbors, the house with a Mountain View, the business community we built over the last seven years, my parents who lived 6 minutes away, and everything that was familiar to us. But I was crying because I felt like I wasted a little too much life building something we didn’t even want to keep. I didn’t feel like I was the person I wanted to be- the friend or daughter or sister I wanted to be. I can’t remember helping one friend move in the past 7 years. And we weren’t even telling people “no”- nobody even asked us for help, for favors. We were always too busy. We were building a business. And all of our friends and family were gracious and understood. But hindsight, I wish we had lived in a way that welcomed at least the “ask”.

For those who will surely misunderstand this post: this is not an “anti-hustle culture; don’t work hard; rest all the time” post. I still believe in working hard and creating a legacy for our family. We’re just doing it a little different this time around. Blaise is still working in the insurance industry. He still works for and with the same insurance carriers, serves his current clients well and is able to help anyone looking for life insurance, annuities or infinite banking options. We are just no longer running an entire agency. Although we truly loved every person we were able to work with and I will always cherish that season of Blaise and I grinding it out together, it was no longer possible or fair to split our time and energy and focus between our family, our agency and other projects we felt it was time to pursue. We had no choice but to choose.

Ella Jean picked up a chicken with her bare hands yesterday and Blaise Storm fell asleep turning little lines into small buildings on his Etch A Sketch. Judah Cruz now only knows a life with deer and wild turkey in the front yard. My husband’s right elbow is sore from skipping rocks into the lake (not because he is getting old or out of shape but because him and the kids did this for HOURS.) And I just wrote my first blog in YEARS.

So even though we made mistakes along the way, it’s hard to have regrets. Because every single decision we made got us to where we are now. And I really like where we are now. Out of the grind and off the grid with a little less fire emojis and a lot more campfires.

With love from Montana,

Christina