"We'll Meet Again, Don't Know Where, Don't Know When"
Like many people our age, we've been talking about downsizing.
Now, there is NOTHING about our current home that I don't love. About nine years ago, when it seemed as if the adult children had left for good (following some grown, gone, launched and returned as they found their sea legs in the world), we gave thought to what we should do with this five bedroom house that served our family extremely well but, as we looked forward, had probably outlived its utilitarian usefulness.
At that time, we landed on three possibilities:
1. Sell the house in its 'as is' condition, which was to say, would require a fair amount of work. As in our master bathroom was Pepto Bismol pink, appliances were dated, etc., etc.
2. Do some updating a la Home Depot to see if we couldn't up the asking price above Fixer Upper status.
3. Remodel and turn the house into the dwelling we had always wanted, but were otherwise previously financially obligated, preventing the depth of work necessary.
We opted for Door Number 3 and I have never been anything but delighted with how the remodel turned out. Of course it helped that we had an architect on staff to be the designer and construction manager (aka my husband, Dan). We were on the same page as far as not only the scope of the work, but materials and decor. Truly, there is not a morning that I don't go into our master bath, or come down to the expanded kitchen, and think how much I like our spaces. And the remodel came in particularly handy when we hosted our final exchange student--and first son--Art. It was also useful when Molly, Jackson and Beau lived with us for a couple years. We all had individual space, and the spaces where we intersected were ample and welcoming.
When interest rates plummeted and the housing market heated up, we considered selling. However, given the opposite end of what we could get for our house, i.e. what we would have to pay for a downsized property, we decided not to make a move. Because we have a large, heavily treed lot, we hired a local teen to mow and a service to rake up leaves. So Dan wouldn't have to climb up two stories to reach the upper level gutters, a leaf guard gutter system was installed. And he finally gave up the ghost on shoveling our long, steep driveway and hired a snowplowing service. In other words, we made sensible accommodations for two people then pushing seventy.
As most of you know, last winter, in Florida, Dan was struck by a car while crossing the street. Now, I'm not sure what other people think while they're racing to the emergency room after their husband's been hit by a car, but one of the many things that crossed my mind was what if Dan's incapacitated permanently in a way which prevents him from going up and down the 13 stairs from the main floor to the second floor, where our full baths and bedrooms are located? "Crap," I thought, "we shoulda put the house on the market last summer."
Such possibility of incapacitation had been a topic of conversation, not just between us but with our friends of our certain age. Our current dining room (the living room pre remodel) could easily be converted to a bedroom. A shower could readily be added to the main floor 1/2 bath. Ideal, no, but done and done! At the end of my mother-in-law's run, she had a hospital bed in her living room and at the very end used a commode. Not the most elegant, but it worked for her. My mother spent the final years of her life not in her main floor bedroom with its attached master bath, but in a hospital bed in the living room. Dan and I have very much been, "We can make this work" people, so when we would chat about the impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy "what ifs," we always figured we'd be able to make whatever needed to work out, work out.
At the same time, we were mumbling about the advisability of moving to a one story dwelling. Probably not a condo. More likely a townhouse or villa home, because I enjoy being outdoors too much not to have easy, ready access to a yard of some sorts. Being able to continue gardening would be a bonus, though I am making tentative arrangements with my son-in-law Darin to assume responsibility for his backyard garden, which, by the way, has something my gardens has never had--full sun!
Since we returned home from Florida, I've been after Dan to have one his realtor friends come over and give us an appraisal of what our house would be worth. That felt like a good first step to both of us, so we did, have a realtor come over and we ended up signing a listing agreement for the house.
For now, it's what considered a pocket agreement, meaning the realtor has the listing and knows the house is available, but it's not on the MLS. (Though he did ask me how quickly I could move and my reply was, "For the right price, I can do anything.") It will go on the MLS probably early spring, while we're in Florida, meaning we'll prep the house for staging before we leave at the end of January. (I didn't want to live in a staged house during the holidays--what would I do with all my Christmas trees?)
Also, we're not in any hurry because we're not sure where we're going to live. Neither of us is spending a lot of time on the realty websites looking for properties. Honestly, there's not a lot out there right now and the market will be a bit more flush when we're back in May. We can make this work. We'll figure it out.
Now, truth be told, the emotion of this has caught me a bit unawares. In the classes I teach, downsizing is often a topic and I speak of it dispassionately, all logic. "It's probably nice to be able to make a decision about where you're going to live while you still have agency over your life rather than being told that you can't live in your multi-level house anymore," is pretty much my standard line.
But, still. What's catching me short is the yard and the gardens. As I write this, I'm sitting in my office previously a bedroom, my desk pushed against the window overlooking the backyard. From here I see the birds enormously busy wiping out the feeders, loading up for winter or their trip south. The lounge chairs I use all summer to sit outside and read are still there, one covered with the detritus from the squirrels cracking walnuts. Occasionally a deer wanders through, munching at the remnants of the plants, attempting to grab a snack at the bird feeders. The squirrels engage in their never ending games of tag. A least a dozen shades of green, yellow, crimson still linger in the trees, though the wind is doing its best to knock the leaves to carpet the droughted grass. No matter where we go, we'll not have a yard like this again and this, this I will miss the most. The rest of it I'll figure out and yes, I'd like to get settled into whatever new space is on our horizon while I do have that agency over my life.
Today I cleaned out the final vegetables, carrots and brussel sprouts. It hit me that in all likelihood, I won't be putting in a garden in this backyard again although, who knows what life and the economy and the housing and the mortgage markets will look like come spring? As I was pulling up the carrots, I found myself humming, "We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when..."
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