More transitions

If someone had told me a year ago that I would again be renting a Budget rental truck for more long distance moving operations, I would have pulled out the cross to ward off the demons of moving madness. Or maybe a gun. Weeks of clearing out, cleaning out, and fixing up living quarters???? NO WAY. Not me this time - I am still happily and firmly planted in my Maine home. This time a long journey to help my daughter move from near NYC across the big state to Buffalo, and then to travel together to Virginia to transition our house there to its next incarnation after a year as a rental. 2300 miles later....through layers of bruises and waning exhaustion....I can mostly say "mission accomplished." And shake my head at the long list of chores ticked off the list.

• Drive from Maine to NY
• Load 16' rental truck with accumulations from Corrina's 2nd and third floor apartment
• Drive in tandem (me in the truck, Corrina in my car) across the big and beautiful state of NY at 45 mph
• Hole up in a Super 8 for 3 days while we hunt for an apartment and store her stuff in storage
• Drive the long mostly back roads from Buffalo to Charlottesville
• Arrive to find the house left dirty by renters
• Clean
• New roof
• new ceiling and screens on screen porch
• new french drain to aleviate water problems
• Repoint bricks on house face
• Recover long neglected gardens and yard
• paint kitchen, living room, dining room
• Show house to potential renters
• Decide to not deal with cleaning up after others, and vrbo the house
• Refurnish house
• Replace central air conditioning which broke down 2 days after we arrived
• leave Corrina in VA with a finish up "to do" list
• Drive solo the 16 hours back to Maine

I think it was trying to accomplish the Virginia house transition in mid 90 temps with high humidity and no AC that allowed me to fully detach myself emotionally from living there, though it was starting to look cute and comfortable again when I headed back up the long road north and home.

I guess that lesson of downsizing has not been yet fully learned. And it IS tricky when despite all of your best intentions to avoid the "sins of our fathers" pretty much my full 'retirement package' sits in real estate. And try as I do to see a better way to plan for years ahead, and to get out from under so much work on the homefronts, the way out is not yet clear. Not much hope of selling in this downtrodden market. Totally discouraged by my first episode with long term renters. No way to go but forward. Which has been decided as short term rentals, toward hopefully selling what was the home place for 20 years.

Leaving my daughter to ponder the demise of her only real home base for most of her life......I headed back up to my beloved new digs in Maine. It is not hard to loathe Virginia in June and July and August. It is simply not habitable for those of us who don't function in the 90s (heat AND humidity) Yet for a host of reasons mostly out of my control, we still have a roost there.....and now one that is mostly devoid of personal affects. The gardens are all but succumbed to neglect and climate and prolific climbing vines which literally cover and choke all in their way. No way to stop them.....or the deer who have found my gardens there a virtual salad bar for years. Unless of course you live there heavily armed with pruners, sprays, and lots of elbow grease. So in comes a hired landscape guy to weed whack and mow - to at least keep the near perimeter navigable. Sad, when once the gardens were teeming with color and butterflies and the voices of happy children splashing in the pool or playing in the woods. Yet change is one of the best motivators in this life...... and the VA house awaits its own next transition to new owners. I suppose I do look forward to a next visit in a kinder season, of planting carefree, inedible plants to brighten the yard for a hopeful spring sale, and to ponder again a life that is in constant flux.
All of its episodes offering new adventure, fond memories, and wisdom gained slowly from the experience and memory of all we are, have been, and can be.