Laura KellerSince my husband retired from the military last August, I’ve noticed a strange thing that is NOT happening in our house this year.
Usually at this point–the one-year mark in a posting–we would start speculating where we would be going next. We’d examine the possibilities, scope out houses on the MLS and weigh the pros and cons of each possibility. Never mind that, often the actual posting ended up being somewhere completely different than what we had speculated!
But, we’d start trying to decide if it would be worth moving the trampoline. Perhaps we’d put off getting the puppy in case the next house didn’t have a fence. We’d delay planning our summer vacation, in case we would be moving to that part of the country anyway. We’d stress over house prices in whatever city or town we thought we might end up in.
I don’t miss this. This constant living in the future, making decisions based on what might possibly happen in a year’s time. I can’t tell you how nice it is right now to just be where we are. We’re settling in at a much slower pace than we have in the past. And it’s because there’s no rush this time.
We don’t have to hurry up and make improvements to the house, so that we could enjoy them for a while before moving again in two years time. We don’t have to constantly factor resale into every decision we make with our home. We don’t have to frantically tour the area so that we can see all the sites before heading off to the next place. There’s no rush.
So, this year we’ve put a few plants in the garden. And then we’ll take our time deciding on the others. There’s no rush. We’ve talked about some changes we’d like to make to the house. And we’ll get to them when we’re ready … but there’s no rush. We’re slowly settling into family life in a place that neither of us has lived in over 20 years. And there’s no rush. We can take all the time in the world, because we aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
