When in New York, we briefly toyed with the idea of buying a house. Ultimately, buying real estate in the about-to-crumble U.S. market would have been a bad idea, and property taxes in the town where we lived were insane, but it was a thought. While we were tossing the idea around, someone advised us “you pretty much have to live in a house 5 years before you can make any money on it.” That about closed the book on the discussion, because, I replied “there’s no way we can stay in one place for 5 years!”
So last summer we decided to break that pattern, and bought a house in a growing market, where property taxes were low, and committed to living there at least 5 years. Its been almost a year, and with our only potential summer adventure now clearly a no-go, I’ve got to admit that some of that restlessness that we used to feel every 12 months or so that compelled us to get up and move almost annually, is beginning to boil under the surface…
Saturday was a very nice day off, where we intentionally cleared our schedules to unwind a bit from a month of abnormally disciplined living, and just be spontaneous. Sunday, unfortunately, was another day off. Two in a row is way too much for me. And its looking like this summer is going to be full of them.
Maybe for some people that sounds like a good thing, but not for me. This is probably our first summer ever where we’re not going somewhere, looking forward to something, or working toward some big goal. We have a couple weddings, some gardening to do, some visits with family, and maybe a couple little projects around the house. Other than that there are no goals, no objectives, no adventures, no trips, no crazy stunts to try and pull off. Just 3 months of normal adult life. Of being parents, employees (ok, just employee), home owners, casual volunteers and tax payers — and I still have 2.5 weeks of vacation left to use!
This is not living.
There has to be more than this.
Some friends of ours leave to go back to Africa on Friday. Africa.
My mom is off to Chiang Mai tomorrow. I don’t know where that is, but it sounds a lot more interesting than where we are.
I read an article about an elderly couple building a boat in a back yard so they can cruise the high seas until they drop. That sounds like an idea, maybe I’ll build a boat…
Anyone have any other suggestions?