From a dream to reality (Our Journey to Brighton Part 2)

I left off our story with an inexplicable invitation from the sea.

What happened after that remains hazy; I'm unsure if I'll ever manage to recount the chain of events accurately, but I do remember how stressful it was.

Moving to the seaside was never in our plans. We hadn't prepared for this possibility, so we were unsure of the steps needed to relocate our family to a place where we didn't know many people but felt drawn to mystically. All we did was take the next step, even if some steps led us seemingly nowhere.

Shortly after the seeds of the idea of moving to Brighton were planted, we received an offer for our flat and soon found an affordable house in Brighton. Shortly after we could even attend an open day at the local primary school that we absolutely loved. Everything seemed to fall into place, and we aimed to move in before Christmas.

However, it didn’t happen.

Our buyers withdrew, followed by our sellers, forcing us to start everything over again. 

Back in 2021 and 2022, the real estate market was booming— houses sold within hours of listing. For the next 6 months, I started my days by checking the Rightmove and Zoopla email notifications of new property listings. When a house came up within our budget, I'd make calls to agents, schedule viewings for the same morning, drop off the kids, and go on a 2-hour drive to the sea. I'd make offers on any house with walls, only to receive rejection calls on my way home.

We had two accepted offers on different houses, but both fell through for unknown reasons after a few months. For my non-UK readers: buying a property in the UK takes at least 2-3 months and both parties can pull out of a sale without any consequences, any time before the exchange.

This period was beyond stressful. I felt exhausted because of the stress and the long drives. My sleep was affected and I noticed my hands started to shake randomly. I felt guilty for dragging the kids into this circus and I was anxious all the time. As someone who dreams big (and a lot haha), it was heart-wrenching for me every time my dreams shattered.

To help my body relieve stress, I decided to change my yoga practice and use its power to reduce my stress. I practised yoga poses and flows that focused on releasing emotions stored in the hip area and started meditating. (I still haven't really mastered meditation to this day, but I find sitting in silence for long minutes very calming.) I'm immensely thankful to yoga for helping me cope with this difficult period. Life was unpredictable; we had no control over when or where we'd move. We viewed houses, put in offers, started the sale process, started to dream about decorating the rooms, and planned to move – only to be sent back to square one.

Did I say square one? Actually, I'm not entirely sure if we were ever at square one again. Despite seemingly stagnant progress, we persevered. Our determination to move to the seaside grew stronger. I'm unsure where our strength came from, why we didn't give up and say, "alright, we tried, but maybe the Universe wants us to stay here." But we kept going. 

But how did our story end? Did we finally buy a house?

No, we didn’t.

However, our desire to fulfil our dreams prompted us to explore other options. We decided to sell our home and rent a bungalow in Peacehaven – the renting market was booming as the selling market. We couldn’t find anything closer to Brighton at the time.

We moved to Peacehaven in June 2022 and enrolled the kids in the school we visited back then in Brighton. We planned to find a house nearer to the school and move within the year.

That Summer was memorably hot, and I spent most of it with the kids at the sea. I felt content. I was grateful for not giving up on our dreams. I knew our lives would be wonderful here.

But it wasn't. September has arrived and things went downhill really quickly...