I don’t know if you noticed, but I live in a yurt. How Raven and I ended up here is a different story depending if it is him or I who is telling.
For me, this began three years ago when I accepted a new position with my current place of work and went from driving over 100 miles a day to only driving 25. After catching up on the years of sleep I had lost between the 1.25 hour commute – each way through rural roads to highway – and long work days, I had the sudden revelation: I wanted to sell the house. Mind you, I am highly aware that it might have been a better idea to realize I was willing to sell the house when I took the position that caused all the driving and loss of sleep. But that is the odd thing about stretching yourself thin, especially for something like work. It tends to make you dig in your heels so that you refuse to give up one more ounce of something you have in sacrifice for it. So, we had kept the house and I had commuted.
And then, one bright spring day, refreshed from sleep, I decided I really didn’t want the house. It was nice. A 200-year-old chestnut timber frame cape. All the way down to mortise and tenon joints, square nails occasionally found in the garden, 6 acres on a dead-end gravel road near meandering paths, 5 apple trees, 2 car garage, etc. Lovely . . . and I didn’t enjoy any of it anymore.
The house sucked up far too much of the money. Between mortgage, utilities, improvement projects (200 years old = LOTS to improve and fix!), old weedy flower beds, chores, well I rarely took any meandering walks. I mostly worked on the house and all the things that came with. For a time the projects like the arbor and picket fence were fun. Cutting a hole in the wall and installing french doors was exciting . . . but it never stopped. An old house always has projects and some of the big ones were well beyond our means. The gardens needed far more attention than I had interest. I was constantly dissatisfied as it felt like I lived life on a hamster wheel – going nowhere but working really hard at it.
And it all came down that it was as much a choice to stay as it was to go. I didn’t need any other reason to want to sell, not for work, not for lack of money, but just because I had tried the whole house thing, enjoyed some of it, but it was time to move on.
Of course, selling a house that you owned for 6 years isn’t something you do overnight. But that is a story for the next post.