Envisioning Life “Out West”

Returning from Arizona in 2016 - [See prequel Jan. 2026 blog post] - Nathan and I began to play with the fantasy of relocating to the Southwest.   Personally, I began to consider what such a move could mean for me. Would it be safe for me to leave everything and everyone behind -  at retirement age and after 30 years in a community - and move cross country?  Would my husband and I hold our tight bond regardless of any adversity we might face in a new setting? We had both failed in prior marriages so I might have been terrified at the prospect of becoming a “stranger in a stranger land” if this well intentioned adventure ruined our marriage. To my surprise and great relief, all of these thoughts were brief and fleeting. After 20 years with Nathan, my guts had "a knowing" that this marriage was indeed solid.  This wasn't the first time that my guts had delivered this message.  

Snow Canyon, Ivins, UT near St. George

Our decision to leave the nest was so easy that it had to have held a cosmic force behind it.   In 2017, we began planning for when to sell the house, what to purge, where to live, and the logistics for getting there. Getting where? Would we become nomads? Where would we visit? Were we looking for a permanent home? We studied maps. We dreamed of the life we wanted to live. We decided to wander without commitment and to head for St. George, Utah, for starters. We hoped to stay for a year and make side trips of a couple hundred miles out from there. When we were “done” there,  we planned to center ourselves in another spot and repeat the cycle until we decided to settle down.

How would we get there? We started shopping for a big comfortable car that would take everything we could pack into it for the long drive to move cross country. Everything else had to go.  We started planning for a huge purge of our possessions. Watch for next month's post about our year long effort to lessen our load!

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Moving to another planet at 65

I've moved from Maine to Illinois to Florida to New Jersey and back to Florida in my life time. I was thirty-something the last time. At sixty-five, here are my thoughts about moving...

• A large part of my identity is tied up in this house: steward of the land, hostess with the mostest, chef extraordinaire, hearty parties, welcome wagon, etc., and most recently, artist.
• It's almost like dying, leaving "this life".  Having to say goodbye to people you know you won't see again. Giving away precious possessions you hope will retain some meaning for those who receive them. 
• There are memories encased in the "physical stuff" you have carried since you set up housekeeping after high school graduation.
• Yes, I got a little "homesick" but I was so much less attached to the importance of community. I didn't value friendships the way I do today. We think we have "forever"...
• There were no social media or cell phones for any of my interstate moves so it was much harder to stay in touch. You had to pay by the minute to talk to anyone you knew! Can you imagine?
• How do you make friends and develop community when you drop in unannounced? You can't expect people to know you are coming and welcome you.

This time around...

• I have managed to get blessed with the best partner possible to go with me on this new leg of life.
• The artist in me is going to help me transition to other spaces. I have been known to make jewelry on other road trips.  My jewelry also opens doors with people who admire what I wear.
• Friends are excited and authentically happy for us, telling us that we are brave. No one has dared to tell us that we must be crazy! They are just smiling and wishing us the best.  Some are secretly wishing they could come with us...
• 
  We are literally free to go, mobile, root-less, and unencumbered, for the most part.
• Social media and cell phones exist. Amen!
• We have some old and new friends out West that we can visit when we feel an urge to nest with our past and relax in shared history 
• We have new friends we have never met who waiting for us to visit them north of our initial stop.  Thank you, Facebook.
• It's going to be a fulfilling adventure!

Raccupine Farms

A visiting friend recently made me think of a story that I published in another blog of mine called Raccupine Farms back in 2010.  The post was written a little over a year after being "managed out" of my corporate job when I turned fifty-five.  My spirit was broken and I was burned out from six months of unethical practices of abuse-- albeit normal, I've heard from other survivors-- from my managers. Looking back, I had no business being in that particular corporate structure. I am an empath NOT a barracuda. It had been a painful year and I was still recovering from exhaustion and the trauma of rejection.

Our marriage was twelve years old at that time, neither of us had made it that long in other relationships, and I was feeling introspective on the wonderful transition that began for me when Nathan came into my life and into this house. 

Almost ten years have passed and I will let the piece speak for itself. It gives me joy to revisit it and celebrate how we have come through hard times and still managed to heal each other with our love for one another.

https://raccupinefarms.blogspot.com/2010/08/dirt-composting-and-love.html

First Post!

So here is my first post for "thatlevywoman" blog I will launch in mid-May if not sooner. I am just itching to write!

I hope you will subscribe to my new blog by entering your email into the box at the top of right side labeled "Receive Post Notices by Email". You will get an email and a link to the most current posting on our journey. Don't miss this fabulous freeing adventure we have "semi-planned"!