It was only 10-months ago that I announced on this blog that finally, FINALLY, Wife and I had made a decision on the trajectory of our life's final stages after years of waffling over this approach and that approach (mostly associated with bailing on living in the United States and moving out-of-country). We'd decided we'd stay in the house, travel as we have been, and end our days here. We even made a decision to do some major work on the house to make it really the way we wanted it as long as we were staying.
That decision was solid until we were soaking in the boardroom (pool) in Krabi, Thailand day-after-day, after our fried chicken breakfasts. As we got mellower and mellower, we started to talk.
"Hun, are you missing the house?"
"Not really."
"I'm so tired of all it takes to keep it up."
"Could you see us doing this long-term?"
"You mean just give up everything?"
"Yah. Sell it all off. Completely unmoor."
At the same time, we got the final quote for our remodel which was crazy high and totally not doable. We started researching (yet again) what it would take to pull this off.
And DAMN, we ran into all of the problems we'd hit before. Visa issues and how long one could stay in various places. What to do about health insurance? How were you going to handle the 'End'?
Then we did our Ghana stint and came home totally exhausted. We were bummed at how much work the yard needed. But God, we were glad for the body healing resulting from our own beds, chairs, and other aspects of our house. We've done some research into some senior living options that would allow us to give up the house but stay here in Albuquerque. They are not particularly attractive.
Our total enjoyment of SE Asia and knowing the #2's will be based there for three years has opened a different travel schedule that has the potential to give us more of what we enjoy of the house without some of the negatives our current travel schedule has created.
We're pretty sure we've finally leached the crazy, going to multiple countries and cities within countries travel routine (I hope 🙏) and will be focusing on longer stays in one place.
Given our propensity for flip flopping, I will hold off from any 'for sure' pronouncements.
2 comments:
I'm smiling at this post- the answer to your title question is, "A solid maybe." But I also sympathize- I struggled for years with choosing what career to pursue. In the end, I was only able to choose because I promised myself I could change later. But that is not a practical technique here.
lol RM, this was exactly my thought trying to parse this blog post. A definite 'probably'
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