My husband wants to move. He always wants to move. He is a rolling stone. I always want to stay. We moved 6 times in 5 years when we first got married. Long, grueling, cross country moves. I hate to move. I never liked the idea of uprooting the children.
He had this idea that we were going to buy one of those $1 homes in the countryside in Tuscany and fix it up. I reminded him of all the red tape and the multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars it would take to fix it up. Then he really has been on this kick about Texas. He wants to buy land in Texas and live on a ranch. Something about it just doesn't feel right. I've lived in Texas. I have no desire to live in the desert with scorpions, tarantulas, rattlesnakes, and tumbleweeds.
My soul belongs in the Carolinas and the idea of moving just seems exhausting. But things have been changing lately. This pandemic has forced me to reflect on a lot of things. Our lives have changed irreparably. So many sad, bad things have happened but so many new and exciting things too. It has stretched me and made me face a lot of difficult truths.
I was out for a walk last week and really thinking about my life and the future. We moved to Charleston when the children were very little. They were just a few months shy of 1 and 3. We wanted to raise them close to family. In a place where there would be a lot to do and opportunities to grow. It has been that. Our neighborhood has been an amazing one to grow up in. There were always kids playing in the streets and the holidays were magical. Throngs of trick-or-treaters and houses adorned with lights at Christmas. When the kids were young there were always family events and they spent a lot of time with my parents. It was wonderful. Truly everything you would want in a place to raise children.
But things are different now. My family is weird is fractured. If you can even call it a family at all. I have my father and my brother but even they are considering moving. My oldest will graduate next June and my youngest is just 2 years behind her. They don't play outside with the other children anymore.
Speaking of which, this election needs to be over. Not for the reason you are thinking. You think the presidential race is contentious? You should see the vote that is going to happen for the parks in our community. People are losing their minds about it. I've been added to Facebook groups about it, people are wanting to know my opinion about it. I'm just over here like, my kids don't do sports and I'll never use a walking trail that is meant for the other (better) neighborhood in my city so here my bucket of f*cks that I give:
Empty. I have zero f*cks to give about the parks and walking trails.
I'm kind of tired about hearing about the school and about fireworks scaring people's dogs. Even my youngest doesn't plan to graduate from our local high school. I have no skin in the game anymore.
I've done all the things. I ate at all the restaurants. I've been to all the plantations twice. I hate the beach. I don't like it. It doesn't bring me joy. I didn't go to the beach this summer. I live 25 minutes from the Isle of Palms and it never occurred to me to go once. I don't own a boat. I'm not a Salt Life kind of gal.
We both work remotely and can work from anywhere. Once the children graduate, there will be nothing tethering us here. Then what am I supposed to do? Stay in this house that once was full of kids running up and down the stairs and teenagers lounging and laughing in the living room that's now silent? Will it become a tomb for my memories? A place where my husband is constantly badgering me to move to some ranch in Texas.
I don't want any of that. The things that served me no longer serve me. I told him that we can move. But it has to be in the Carolinas. I want to where there are four seasons. We want to buy land, an acre at least and build a house on it. I want it to be some Cold Mountain type shit except without the War and with electricity. We are simple people. Nothing extravagant.
But it needs to have a tin roof because I'm not dealing with replacing a roof in my lifetime and a wrap-around porch. I'll sit out there in the fall with a cup of coffee and listen to Ashokan Farewell and watch the leaves fall off of the trees. It needs a joint office with a big window so we can look outside while we work. "We are getting older and I'm ready for a more quiet life," says my husband. "We will be like 40," I tell him. Raising children has taken a lot out of us.
We want to go somewhere where we don't see our neighbors. Where we are nestled in the woods but a 15-20 minute drive to civilization and a grocery store. Of course, there needs to be an airport. We want to go somewhere where nobody knows our name. Literally the opposite of Cheers.
On a sidenote, I listened to the theme song from Cheers recently and it is BANANAS. Cheers: life is kind of sucky, so you should go to a bar because alcoholism makes things a little better. 8 year old me:
It's a while out, 3 and half years but that gives a lot of time to plan and really be strategic. To pray on it and put it out to the universe. I have faith that we will wind up where we are supposed to be. We always do.
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