Four years ago today, I closed on selling my house and on buying a small two bedroom condo. Four years of not having to climb up and down stairs. Four years of not mowing lawn. Four years of not weeding the gardens. Four years of not shoveling snow. Four years of not weeding. Four years of a beautiful office window view. Four years of hearing the geese calling every morning as they fly in and every evening as they fly out. Four years of enjoying hearing the birds singing as I sit on my porch. Four years of greeting neighbors and their dogs. Four years of making new friends. Four years of new memories.
Moving from a family home after I was the last one left who had made it a home, was scary for me. Luckily it went from talking about it to happening in just three months. Such a whirlwind of downsizing, there wasn’t time to think about whether or not this was the right thing to do. Sure I couldn’t keep up with the large house and yard any longer. And the neighborhood wasn’t the safest place for me. But there were so many memories tied up in that home. All the improvements my hubby had made and all the beautiful gardening and landscaping he had created. I knew it was even harder for my children as this home was the one they remembered dearly.
Things were lost during the move because there was no basement or shed storage. Time to downsize my life and the “things” collected over the years. It seemed one day I was thinking about selling and the next it belonged to someone else and I no longer lived there. Over the four years I’ve been here, some new memories have been made. But due to sizing, we don’t have the family get togethers like we used to. I don’t see my children as often as I used to. There are days when I feel isolated from family, though only a few of them live out of state. The get togethers and the yearly family Christmas are the things I miss the most. But I have no regrets.
This home is perfect for me. The memories of the past are still alive and I pull them out sometimes and live them again. I wish my hubby was able to enjoy this place, too. To sit on the front porch and talk to all the neighbors. But I’m not sorry he isn’t. He is in Heaven and I wouldn’t have wanted him to live through the pandemic with his lung and heart issues. So even this is not a regret.
I’m a woman in waiting now. I’m enjoying each day as it comes, thankful for God’s blessings. Lifting my cup of tea and listening to the cicadas singing in the distance as the end of summer nears. Soon it will be fall, my favorite season of the year. My thoughts will soon be on pumpkins, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. And always, always, thankful.
Carol Ann Erhardt, Author 