Losing it

I think we can all agree that I've handled the stress of the last few months rather well, for me. Sure, I'm up a few pounds from some feeling-eating, but generally I've been upbeat, focused, and generally gung ho.  To some extent I realized early on that if I fully acknowledged my anxieties, they would mushroom all over me, so I've just put my head down and crossed things off lists, did things that needed to be done, and pushed that part of me that is freaking out, worrying, fretting, doomsdaying and naysaying into a deep mental corner (let's call her Lois, shall we?), and sat on her.  It was all going so well. *Foreshadowing!*

On Saturday David and I had a heart to heart about hiring movers, and he sanely insisted that he'd like to enjoy the first few months of our trip, rather than being crippled by back pain for them.  It all made sense, and after some hemming and hawing I booked movers through E-move.com. Not the cheapest, not the most expensive, with more reviews and favorable ones. 

And then I went out to the garage to get some bubble wrap and starting sobbing.  I can't exactly explain it, because it all made sense, and it isn't that much money, but Lois had apparently had enough. She'd been sat on for far too long, and she wasn't going to take it anymore.  I pulled myself together, blamed my red face on the hot garage, and proceeded to bubble wrap some fragile stuff and sniffle a lot.  I don't blame David for not noticing, or saying anything if he did notice. His education has been extensive.  I just wanted to work on punching Lois into submission, and wrap some teapots at the same time.  Eventually I regained my equilibrium, and we met friends for a birthday dinner out, and maybe a glass or two of wine finally was what settled Lois down to a grumble.

Part of the reason I didn't pour my anxiety out to David is that I know the peace we're existing in right now (what little there is) is somewhat fragile.  And there is always this fear that whatever issue awakens Lois will startle his own gremlin of self-doubt, and a domino effect will happen.  I will admit, however, that David has had far fewer expressions of uncertainty.  But then again, I think he's just that much better and stifling his own version of Lois (Louie?).

So getting back to this weekend, we were both doing ok. We delivered a load of stuff to my parents' basement, had a family lunch, ran some errands on the way home, and then got back to trucking along with packing things when we got back home.  We left our miniature poodle Ruby with my parents (where she'll stay when we're gone) so that she could avoid the stress of the next week before the moving truck comes. And then as we were packing things we realized that she probably wouldn't come back to the house to stay until we return from our trip. The next three weeks are crazy stressful, one week with moving chaos, one week with paint, cleaning, and no furniture chaos, and one week where we're homeless by Monday. While we'll see her in the next three weeks, she effectively had already moved out. So I packed up all her her toys, brushes, special shampoo, and her treats. I looked at David, and he looked at me, and we both felt blindsided. It felt a little like she'd died, which was crazy, because we'd left her bouncing off the walls at my parents' house a few hours earlier.  David was hugging me, and I was crying, but somehow laughing at myself at the same time.

It was just all too much, I guess. 

When I had some time to reflect about it, I realized what my problem with hiring movers was. It wasn't that I freaked out about moving, or had any doubts about the trip. It was that I know every dollar I spend on moving expenses is a dollar I don't spend in Bali, or Argentina, or Cairo. And while I know that spending money on movers rather than on physical therapy for David's back is a sound decision, tell that to Lois.

The Ruby thing is pure projection. It's all happening so fast, but this one snuck up on us. I realized that the last walk we took on Saturday night was her last walk in the neighborhood (for a year! Not dead yet!).  Packing up her leash, food and water dishes, and her soccer balls was this small (much, much easier) version of what we're doing with everything. And while I'm excited for the future, there is much that is bittersweet about the moving process.  You can't look forward all the time. You just can't.  And Lois, she's there in my peripheral vision, every time I turn my head.

Last night I did what I always do to calm myself down. I baked. I made granola and two types of cookies and used up ingredients and basically said goodbye to that part of my life for the next while. I got flour on my Kitchenaid mixer and in my hair. David licked the last of the batter off the spatula, and I kissed my baking career on both cheeks. It felt good to get to do it one last time, knowing it was the last time. It was so much better that way--not a Lois in sight.

And as much as I'd like to stash Lois at my parents' house along with all of our other things, she's probably along for the ride this next year (so! much! to worry! about!).  So I have two choices: I can either make my peace with her and try and hug it out, or I can keep pushing her into the corner and turning my back on her.  I haven't chosen a strategy yet, but I'll keep you posted.

all we can do is keep breathing

Months! Months have passed without a peep here. Yes, we are still doing this. Yes, we have been working toward our goals. We're packing, packing, packing. We're purging as much as we can bear. We haven't sold anything yet, but that's mostly a lazy thing. We'll get to it, hopefully.  We've also realized that it isn't the end of the world to pack something rather than sell or purge it, although we're still trying. And if the stuff we don't want to keep doesn't sell, we'll just give it away. I'm trying to let go of selling things as a money-making proposition to fund our trip.

David has a countdown timer for the number of workdays and work hours left until his last day. And I think he'd gladly walk out tomorrow if he felt he could. I've urged him to just hang on, think about the paychecks, and breathe.  And he's trying. 

I, however, have more mixed feelings about leaving my job. I like working here. I like the work, I like the people, and I've realized that my bosses are really good. Which is a skill, and a rare one, I might add.  I respect them, and I'll miss them. But I love my family and my husband more (I am a big bag of love) and now is the right time, and this is the right plan for our little family. I just today realized I have six more paychecks to go until I'm out of paychecks for a while. That's when I need David to remind me to breathe. And I'm trying.

We're meeting with a property manager tomorrow morning about putting our house up for rent. Everyone except for me is confident that we'll get it rented soon, but I'm hopeful.

These months have been hard--it's been long enough out, and so much work between now and then, that it's hard to look beyond What We Have To Do Before We Leave.  But part of that is the planning of the trip, which gets us prematurely excited all over again.  I'm going to do a whole separate post on the trip planning stuff. I'm trying very hard not to plan too much. I find myself in the education phase, trying to study up on all the places we're going, and all the options of what to do, which adventures might be our style. I've checked a lot of books out of the library, which has been so helpful, and so very cheap.

For every thing we check off the list, it seems like we add three more "to dos" to it. But we're getting there. I can see a little progress has happened in the last few months. Books have been packed, passports have been renewed. We are breathing.

I don't want anyone to get the impression that we're not excited to be taking this journey. We are So! So! Crazy! Excited! But there is a lot to do between now and September, and with that comes some amount of stress, which I am feeling. And, for that matter, eating. I've given myself  the task of losing 10 pounds in the next 10 weeks before we leave, which seems reasonable, if I just stop the stress eating. We've got mountains to climb (literally) in the next few weeks, and David's beginning to join me on a run occasionally, so our plan is to be fairly fit when we leave, and maintain that fitness on the road as much as possible.

 If I can just quit the stress eating breathe.

Travel Baby and the House

Last night we met with our financial planner, just to let him know what we are doing, and also to see how feasible it is, and get his opinion. It was also a good time just to talk about the money we have, where it’s invested, and that age-old question—when can we retire?  The answer to that is probably not until 55 or 60, unless we can live a whole lot more frugally than he thinks, or we get some kind of windfall.  Which is a bummer. 

But the good news is that he says we can totally take a year off, cash-flow wise, and he’s going to put us in touch with their mortgage guy to refinance our mortgage.  Hopefully we can make this happen soonish, and that’ll help us when we have to rent our place. 

Speaking of which, we had a lightbulb moment over the weekend, realizing that we have a former neighbor who has a unit with the same layout as ours, who is renting out her place. David emailed her about it, asking who manages her property, what she rents her place for, and how it’s working.  She rents her unit for $1550, which if we could do the same, would cover our current mortgage, the HOA, and the property management fee.  If we refinance, we might even be able to stash a little away for the inevitable repairs that will be necessary after having a renter.

That leads in to her next point, which was that she felt the hardest part of the whole renting thing was that your renter doesn’t have respect or investment in your property, so things will get damaged.  She also said she allows pets, which she thinks helped her get her place rented (and re-rented—she just signed a 2 year lease with a new tenant) quickly. She said that getting a response from the property manager who manages the condos and lofts could be frustrating at times, as when you have a renter, time is of the essence when getting repairs taken care of.  So that was all good information.  She also said that she pays $250.00 a year for insurance against a renter.  I’m sure there is a deposit involved, and possibly a pet fee.  She did say they charge a percentage/fee? for getting the property rented, so there is a front end cost.

The other thing that David thought about was seeing if our friend Rob, who right now has a couple of properties he rents and manages himself, could handle it for us.  We would pay him, of course, but it might be better just to have someone who isn’t a friend do it.  We’ll talk to him and see what he thinks.  He’ll be a good resource for advice if nothing else.

There are so many lists, so much to do. So, so much.  But here is my house list:

1.      Sort out and begin packing up books. I think we have a bunch of books that we aren’t going to re-read in the next six months. We can make a shelf/stack of books that we haven’t read, and then pack the rest.  Keeping out the travel books as well.

2.      Sell some furniture. We have a queen size bed and two chairs in the basement that can go.  Sell the treadmill.  Sell/give away/donate some bicycles.  Those speakers that David never repaired.

3.      Donate, donate, donate. I need to go through my clothes (the sock drawer is off the hook) and set aside all the stuff I don’t wear, to donate. I don’t think my Old Navy t-shirts are going to be able to be consigned, so I’m guessing anything I still like/think I’ll wear, I can just pack up.  Then we need to drop it off, or call for a pick up. There are already several garbage bags of stuff waiting in the basement.

4.      The garage. Oh my the garage.  That needs some serious work.

5.      I also want to make a “borrow” list, possibly. Things someone could use while we’re gone, rather than just having them sit in storage.  My mom will benefit from some of this, including our KitchenAid mixer, I think. Although there is no way she can lift that thing, so we’ll see.

6.      Paint. We will need to paint. Definitely all of the trim, and the doors. I think I might be able to get away with not painting everything, and just re-painting the walls that need it, but we’ll see. It’s hard to match colors when you know the paint has faded over the years.

7.      Use up stuff. We have a lot of food, and it might take us six months to use it all up. So the goal is to stop eating out, and to not spend money on food that we might already have. Lots of pasta, lots of beans/rice/couscous/quinoa.  A lot of meat in the freezer.  And oh my god I have a huge bag of powdered sugar in the basement. But I suppose that’ll keep.  Anything we don’t finish, we can probably give out, but first and foremost we need to spend less and eat down what we have.

8.      Same goes for products like toiletries, soap—all consumables, really.  I keep looking at things and wondering if I can use them up in the next six months.  It’s funny how the way you think of things shifts. When I’m shopping now, I think about whether I’ll need it in the next six months, whether I’ll use it up in the next six months. Am I going to have to store this? Do I want to choose to store this?

9.      I also want to make sure all our CDs have been ripped to hard drives, and all of our movies have as well. It would be nice to take them with us—there will always be down time when a movie might be nice, and Netflix won’t work outside the US.  Once the CDs are ripped, we can pack those as well.

I think this weekend we’ll go through the house with a clipboard and try to make determinations about what to keep, what to sell, what to donate.

Six months. Six months isn’t that long, really, when you think about it. It’s two trimesters of a pregnancy. I keep thinking of the parallels in this experience to having a baby. I’ve even called this trip our Travel Baby, often.