Change – a word that not only strikes fear, anxiety, apprehension but also excitement, anticipation.
Transition: passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another : change
b : a movement, development, or evolution from one form, stage, or style to another (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transition).
Spring – a time of rebirth, renewal, change.
I love spring. The gorgeous mix of color while new life begins, rain washes winter away, and everything seems fresh and new.
This spring, though, brought major change, and, in a sense, renewal for us.
The Last Four Months
I have not posted or written anything since the end of January. Our lives have been in a state of change since Friday, February 1st. Since that date we have sold a house, bought a house and land, and listed our farm for sale. Between the closing of one house on March 5, and having to temporarily relocate our office to the farm house, things were a little messy you might say. And organization? That went out the window in March. We closed on our new property March 21st, moved and set up our offices in the new house, and began to move boxes, clothes, and little items. Mid-April we moved big furniture items so that we could stay at the new house and begin the process of separating from the farm.
We, having more flexibility with our time (and not initially feeling the rush/urge to get the move done all at once) took our time. Not necessarily recommended as it did start to frustrate me that we didn’t make more progress. Now, though, we are pretty much settled.
What did we do?
And then, in a moment of panic and shock of change, I looked up at the sky one day through the beautiful trees at our new place and thought: “What have we done?”
It is just that, finally, at the farm, everything was in its place, everything we had anticipated and planned in the remodeling process since we bought the farm in 2004 was completed summer of 2017. We were settled there. (I know – #firstworldproblems.)
It doesn’t hurt to look…
But….every so often both of us would troll through zillow.com to see what was out there. Was there something closer to Fayetteville that would give us what we had now but yet cut down the travel time for us and for our kids? We did seriously look a couple of years ago, but nothing ever felt right. We had decided to just stay and keep things as they were with an office in town and continue making the 80 minute round-trip commute. Then, I saw a place on Zillow. I had “saved” it several weeks back, and kept coming back to look again. It was drawing me. Then, my husband saw the listing and saved it, too. It kept drawing him back. Then we compared notes.
The morning we were going to see the property, I told my husband that I thought we would be better off to just keep everything as it was now. Why were we looking to do a move? Ugh! The thought of moving after 15 years was not at all appealing. We loved our farm, but we agreed to go look at the house Friday, February 1st. I told him it would have to meet all of our criteria or else I wanted to stay at the farm house.
And it did, darn it. We walked in the back door and immediately saw large A-frame shaped windows overlooking a grassy (albeit not green) lawn and trees. The house is a perfect combination of “old” and “new”. A remodeled kitchen, updated bathrooms, and wood walls in much of the house – cabin like wood that always appealed to us. A great space to house our office located off away from the main living area. We loved it. We didn’t want to love it, but we did.
So change….
At 57, I did not think I would be selling our home and moving to another, but we just knew it was the right place and the right thing to do for us now. We are much closer to our kids and are learning our way around the new place. Our office commute is cut down from 40 minutes (one way) to a few seconds.
We loved our 80 acres and home in Winslow. Leaving the farm proved much harder than I thought. We lived there for fifteen years, made a lot of memories, and had anticipated staying there. I will miss the beautiful sunrises and sunsets (completely understand why the road to our house is named “Sunset”), the daily deer and rabbit sightings in the front yard, the absolute peace and quiet.
Don’t Be Afraid of Change
Yet, the new place feels “right” to me. It checks all the boxes and gives us a better location for family and business. Spring displayed beautiful dogwoods and redbud trees, gorgeous irises, azaleas, and more as spring continues and summer approaches. There have been a few deer, a couple of squirrels, and, of course, we have the pygmy goats that came with the place. It is different from the farm but has its own charm.
So now, this spring, as I look out over the beautiful flowers and landscape at our new home, I know what we have done. We have come home and started a new adventure all at the same time. Change can be scary, but change can also be well worth it. Don’t you think so?