Ornament, Christmas tree
Christmas Tree, ornaments
(photos by Nita Lou Bryant)
Ever since starting a small business (now defunct) and learning to take photos of jewelry for online listings, it feels natural to me to look at things in close-up. So natural, in fact, I often find it difficult to step back and take a longer view. But it's important in life to look at things both ways. Otherwise, you get so caught up in the details you fail to discern the bigger picture.
Which is why my family and I will start the new year by moving house.
The house we live in was built in 1939 for a just-married couple, who then went on to raise four children here. It changed owners several times before we bought it, and was for a time occupied by renters. My husband and daughter and I moved in a dozen years ago, but it's been an empty nest now for over a year.
The kindest way to put it is that the house is showing its age.
The kindest way to put it is that the house is showing its age.
It needs work: maintenance, repairs, and fix-up. Work that my husband and I--so focused on the myriad details of everyday life--lack the time and energy to even think about, much less do. Somehow, though, we recently managed to step back and take a good, hard look at our house from a distance. When we did, it became clear that someone needs to do this work.
So we decided to get out of the way and let them get to it by temporarily moving ourselves into a rental house. That's step one.
Step two is to put this old house on the market once the maintenance, repairs, and fix-up work are done. While we love this neighborhood and are good friends with our neighbors, we've decided that we'd like to live in a house that's brand new for a change.
Step two is to put this old house on the market once the maintenance, repairs, and fix-up work are done. While we love this neighborhood and are good friends with our neighbors, we've decided that we'd like to live in a house that's brand new for a change.
Because the truth is, we're showing our age, too.
We don't want to have to keep up with the maintenance an older house will require over the next couple of decades. We figure that if we buy a new home now, it might be fifteen years or so before it would need much work. And who knows--by then, we may be ready to make a different kind of move altogether. Such as to a retirement community with an assisted living option. (Not, we hope, straight into a nursing home!) But the two of us staying in this older home and aging? That strikes us as being shortsighted.
We've resolved to start the new year off by taking the long view.
How will 2010 be different for you?
