Cashing in

After thirteen years of slowly remodeling our house, we have finally moved to the phase where we sell it. It was never our plan to stay in this house that long yet here we are. Like Moses wandering the wilderness, we have now gazed upon the promised land.

We listed our house on Monday and have had three showings with one offer. Another person is doing a second showing and said they are putting in an offer after that.

The weird part is there isn’t a real solid plan for what comes after we sell. Originally we had prepared to go to Hawaii for a few months with no real idea of what would be next. However, my wife caught the acting bug and got a gig as an extra in a TV show. I want to support her goals, so I think my son and I will head to Costa Rica and kick it with my grandparents for a little. Assuming they will take us in.

My brother once told me that he lives doing a trust fall with the universe. Falling back and knowing he will be caught. That is the closest I can come to describing my life right now.

There have been a lot of great things to come out of our long-term elaborate mid-life crisis though. 

We took baby steps to remodel our house, never going into debt and only buying what we could pay for. It might have been quicker and a better experience had we went all in and done everything at once but I imagine the stress level would have been much higher.

A few years into owning our house we decided to pay off our mortgage. Having the laser focus to get something monumental done like that gives you a huge sense of satisfaction. Reducing the size of your monthly nut is an enormous stress reliever as well.

But my favorite by-product of deciding to sell our house has been getting rid of stuff. My wife comes from a long line of hoarders and my people are packrats by trade. Many times throughout the years, my wife would collect her treasures and I would purge our garage of items so there would be more than just a trail to walk through. Only to have the garage fill up with junk after a few years and the cycle of accumulation and evacuation would start again.

I like to pick on her, but I had amassed many cool t-shirts that I was so close to fitting into again and tech gadgets I planned to use one day. Now, all of my worldly possessions fit into a small suitcase and a duffle bag (excluding my car, which I plan to sell). We look around at the spotless, minimalist house we are in and love it.

So we might have spent the last thirteen years wandering a wilderness but we learned a lot along the way. We leveled up our experience points enough to move on to the next stage and are excited to find what adventures lie in store for us.