Well, shit...it's already May (above photo Dave's birthday lunch kicks off the month) and I haven't written a darn thing here since the end of February. On the one hand, that tells you that we've been busy, on the other, it tells you that life is rolling along as expected, no big surprises to alert the presses.
That said, that doesn't mean that things aren't happening, they are, and some are big changes like Christine having moved out almost a month ago. Yes the hummingbird has flown...about 10 minutes away. She finally meet a gal looking for a roommate to move into her existing apartment; the price was right, the location is good, the gal seems to be in the same life-place as Christine (although that could change now that the ex-boyfriend is back in the picture as of this past week...they broke up because he didn't want to move and nor did she but the distance between them was getting to be too much). So, on a sunny Saturday, we; Dave, me, Josh Brenna and Christine, moved her out of our place and into her new place. We also hit up our storage unit and moved everything from there into our garage to eventually end up down in our storage area formerly known as Dave's office. It was a long day and we got the Uhaul back just in time to beat the 4pm closing time. Since then, we've been very busy reorganizing our small place to better utilized the rooms and storage now available with Christine's moving out. It really is amazing how much stuff she had and how much stuff fit in her 14x12 room. She also had cabinet space in the kitchen and shelf space in the fridge and freezer. So, with some Zea-magic, we have transformed all of the open space to a more logical and efficient use of space. And wow, Christine's former bedroom now Dave's office looks amazing with the pieces of art we have hung in there. I realized as we hung everything this week, that I really have missed my art collection.
And it brings up an important question now that we're not going to be buying land...I had always planned to hang a lot of the art in our land purchase home, the one we'd be living in most of the time. I had never planned for us to live full time in this house, which was to be a home base for the future; in fact, we'd planned for Christine and a roommate to live here. So now, with the land on hold tabled for who-knows-how-long, and our living in a much smaller home than we wanted for our primary residence, what do we do? Do we make a new plan for the future without land? Do we hang on to the land dream and potentially not live our lives the way we fully want 'now' hoping 'later' pans out? Do we say 'fuck it' and gamble with our money, just buy the land, cross our fingers and hope we don't lose everything (ultimately meaning our retirement)? Yes, this is privileged people problems. There's nothing wrong with the home we have, it just isn't the home we had planned to live in until later in life, when the kids were married and had kids and we were getting older and wanting to be closer to family. The grounding wrench though is Dave's job; he has a decade before retirement and while he could eventually be laid off or replaced with someone younger and cheaper, for now, he makes a good living. We need that money to make the land happen but have to live here for Dave to have that job. So, all logic points to staying here in So.Cal. So do we sell our low interest rate home and buy another home here, one that fits the life we have/want now but also will cost more than twice the interest rate? Part of the contention is that we always had planned to have animals, a dog or 2 or 3. and while we can have a pet here, with no backyard, the kind of dogs we enjoy are not really conducive. I like having a place to grow things (even though I kill most them by over watering) but here there isn't room to do much of that and things like fruit trees and composting (my lifelong aspiration to not waste) are not allowed due to a rodent problem. So, what? live without the simple things we want or make a new plan? That really is the question at this point in our empty-nest evolution.
And what about me? The past decade I have spent honing my education and skills for a life we currently are not going to live, so...what now? What do I do if I'm not doing the thing I have planned, prepared and dreamed of doing? That is a question that's going to haunt me until I have an answer, and at pushing 59, time is ticking.
I told Dave this week that I feel, in many ways, like I'm getting divorced. The life I had planned for has not panned out, much like a relationship like marriage that no longer works. I've been here before, a 33 year old getting a divorce who had planned to married forever and had made every choice based on that relationship, including staying in this country. It took 7 years to develop and grow my way to my next life. At 59, I just don't have that kind of time.