By Wendy Wheatley
I’ve sold my house. It’s done. I’m moving out. No more septic problems (oops, is the new owner reading this?), no more dealing with the gun club that has target practice at all hours of the day (did I mention it’s across the road?) and no more dealing with the compound that houses a family of 15 people next door.
I’m moving to a better place. I’m moving back to where I grew up – literally. I’m moving into my father’s house. That’s right. We’ve sold our house in Seattle and we’re moving back to Central Illinois where my husband and I grew up. When we left Illinois 6 years ago and we snubbed those that catcalled, “You’ll be back!”. There was no way we were going back to a small town – and now we’re moving back next week.
So I’m starting part of my adult life over again. I’m doing the house hunting and finding out that I’m the epitome of a champagne taste on a beer budget – did I mention that’s cheap beer – the kind that comes in a plain white can with “BEER” written in black letters? And I want a big fat bottle of Chardonay – in a hand cut crystal glass.
And my husband doesn’t help matters at all. We traveled back to Illinois last week for job interviews and to do some house hunting and right off the bat he lost his wallet on the airplane to Illinois. Most people fret about their children’s behavior on airplanes – I have my husband to deal with. We still haven’t found his wallet and we leave town in a week. Hmmmm……. What’s worse is that we left the children in Illinois with my mother-in-law who was brave enough to combat the 3 naughty little children and I don’t miss them yet! Well, sure I miss them – but I feel as if I’m on a vacation for the first time since I had children!!
My husband and I were discussing renting a U-Haul for our trip back and couldn’t agree on how large of a trailer we should reserve. After 20 minutes of heated disputes (and not being interrupted once!), we decided to just drive down to U-Haul to see the difference in trailer sizes.
We were frozen. What do we do? There are no children to gather, shoes to tie, diaper bags to assemble, bottles to warm, children to corral to the van, seat belts to buckle or noses to wipe. After a few fearful moments, we simply stood up and walked out to the car. End of story. It stunned us. It suddenly delighted us. We were adults once more! We could do what we wanted! There was no stopping us now – there were no interruptions. My husband gave me a wink and I knew just what he wanted. How exciting! The thrills! I looked at my husband and returned his gaze. It wouldn’t take that long! This would be the perfect opportunity to leap at what we both had been putting off for sometime now, but had been meaning to do. Yes, that’s right. We mowed the lawn the entire afternoon and couldn’t have been happier.
