The Perils of Downsizing

     Right now I am sitting in an empty house, all alone in our new community, with only our dog for company. I have nothing to do but clean out the basement, change burned-out lightbulbs, fix broken hardware, and go out to our new yard to pull weeds or clip back some long-neglected trees and bushes.

     I remember my sister telling me, after she moved from Portland to Phoenix a little over ten years ago: "I am never moving again!"

Our living room, with dog bed

     Now I know what she's talking about.

     Am I looking for sympathy? No. Am I having regrets? No. We planned this move, and have been preparing for it for ... literally, years. Last summer we sold our family home. We moved into a one-bedroom condo and spent the past year looking for a new place to live. And now we have found it: a little house with a small yard, with a sidewalk out front and a ten-minute stroll down a tree-lined street into a cute town in Bucks County, Pa. Our taxes are lower; the utility bills are lower; even the restaurants seem less expensive.

     I am simply reminding anyone (and myself) who is considering a downsize that there will be times when the going gets a little difficult. It's a lot of work to sell your old house and buy a new one. It's even more work to pack up dozens of boxes of dishes and clothes and books and pictures and the millions of other things you never even knew you had sitting in some remote corner of your house.

     There will be times when you will likely be uncomfortable. You might have to live in a motel for a period of time between moves. You might have to put up with the dust and dirt of any renovations you're making. I, personally, have been living with the smell of fresh paint for the past week. Yes, the walls look nice now; but I am getting real sick of living with paint fumes that linger despite every window in the house hanging wide open.

My new chair!

     You might also have to spend some time in your new house (as I am) with virtually no furniture. I have a bed. I have a small desk with a desk chair, and I brought my laptop with me. Other than that, my new house is empty.

     The place echoes with no carpets on the floor. Even though the weather has been nice, the house seems cold with no furniture in it. And that desk chair kept getting harder and harder, each day, until last night I saw some canvas deck chairs "on sale" outside of the Acme supermarket. So now I have a new blue deck chair that's marginally more comfortable than the torture chair I've been sitting in.

     Right now B is back at our old place. She has all the furniture, which sounds like she has it pretty good. But I talked to her last night. She'd spent the day packing boxes -- she counted them up for me, over the phone, and added up a dozen boxes she'd piled up against our old living room wall.

Our guest room. Doesn't it look inviting?!?

     Our mover is coming in two weeks. That's when she will be done packing, and I'm supposed to have the new place ready to receive our furniture -- furniture that we cannot for the life of us visualize fitting into this new house. (I say "new house." It's new to us, but it was built almost 60 years ago.)

      As far as I know, my sister is still sticking to her resolution to never move again. We'll see what happens with our move, when everything settles out. But whatever happens, I'm beginning to think that both B and I will be crying: "I am never moving again!"