I recently gave some thought as to why the continual moving to a new place doesn’t bother me. At least not much. Sure once in a while it can be challenging. But overall I find myself excitedly looking forward to moving on to another place, another house sitting job. Why?
I realized that many housewives, at one time myself included, enjoy moving the furniture around once in a while and redecorating their homes. Some even have a summer color scheme and a winter color scheme. My mother in law has different flower arrangements she brings out each season. Many women, wives, mothers are constantly changing their environment.
Guess what? I can fulfill that longing for a different environment any time I want! I’ve realized that the moving on to a new place is like redecorating for me. Except I don’t actually have to spend any money on decor. I just go to the next house sitting job and have a new place to call home in new surroundings for a bit. It’s the best!
Something else I’ve come to realize is that until now I’ve never really chosen where I want to live. I mean I have out of necessity in the past chosen a place that was close to family, etc. But I’d never even thought of settling down outside of California where I was born. Now that I’ve seen so much more of the country I know there are many other beautiful places to live. Before settling down again, I need to see lots of them so I know where I really want to live this time. I can choose!
So, I’m traveling looking for that ideal place (at least until we make it to Ireland). :)
At least until we make it to Ireland :)
Always interested to read about your journey. As you will know, That Ideal Place is certainly something I’ve thought long and hard about. I recently chatted to a friend about the choice – and he asked “Ah, where was your wife brought up?”. Of course, Carrie spent her early years very near Bath. He told me a saying (which I’ve promptly forgot the exact words of) something like: “If your wife settles a few miles from where she was born, you will live a very happy life. It’s a homing instinct!”
Enjoy Ireland – but I’ll place my bet is the nomads might settle back in California at some point;-)
And, that, my dear folks is the question. Why not Ireland now?
And, on a different tangent, I have a couple of friends who have done what they call “walk-abouts”. In both cases, they took some time off from regularly scheduled life to figure out where they might like to put roots. Interesting to see that for one getting a job in the desired locale came easily but she was unable to keep the job and then family need pulled her back to where she had grown up – which was not where she had lived most of her adult life having moved to a small island while still in her teens and the mother of a new baby. Why didn’t the rooting work? I don’t know.
In the other situation, she found more the “sense” of what she wanted, and then found love, moved abroad for many years, returned without the love, put aging family first, and has recently moved to a small town in the interior of this province – she keeps her medical care consistent which was important because she has said good-bye to both parents and is of an age when one thinks these things, and her pensions don’t need special treatment to continue but the community is so different from what she is used to she might as well be moving to a foreign country. I wish her well.
However, it occurs to me that you guys are just shortening the timeline on what is true for many (most?) people. There is no permanent place for any of us to be. We wander to the next responsibility-opportunity and either flow and be excited or stress. Glad to see the flowing is working so well for you.
I cannot imagine living in California again. Maybe at one time it might have been true that I’d feel pulled back there. But no longer.
Why not Ireland now? I guess I don’t see how it can happen in a practical manner yet. Or maybe I really do want to roam some more.
For now we’ll continue ‘flowing’. I like flowing. A nice gentle flow, not the rapids.
Ah, Phil, while I’ll certainly end up where Sue is happy, I’ll bet that’s not California, unless the Universe conspires to gift us a large home in a rural area of the coast, near Oregon.
Caitlyn, we still wanna travel, which is part of it, but the biggest part is my fear that we can’t afford it yet. Right now we’re still building the business, and I’m wondering how the Irish gov’t would view our emigration forms if we said we don’t intend to have a home, just to house-site and travel.
But I guess we should ask, huh? (After we’ve seen more of Canada.)