Why I Am Moving From My Neighborhood
With grown children out of the house, what happens next?
Neighborhood photo by Nikola Knezevic on Unsplash
For 30 years, I lived in a great suburban neighborhood where neighbors helped each other.
A massive snow drift in your driveway meant you might find a neighbor by your side helping.
While you were on vacation, an unexpected package delivery meant you might receive a text letting you know the package was safely at their house.
One could feel, sense, and hear the friendly give and take of the neighborhood; friends remarked on it over the years too.
The neighborhood was full of kids of all ages in a great school district.
My husband and I raised our daughter and son here, running to track meets, baseball practices, and school concerts. Then, as we worked full-time, we watched our children become adults, find full-time jobs and move out. The house was still a place of sanctuary during the start of the pandemic, and it became my workplace hub when teleworking started.
Yet my husband and I had decided to move. Not because the house was too big to keep cleaning, nor because my husband was tired of mowing the lawn (though not untrue).
Our house was as comfortable as wearing a great pair of slippers or a fluffy robe. The house was full of memories and connections.
I had retired from my 32-year state government career; my husband was semi-retired. Then something quietly shifted; a cycle had ended.
Accept when one cycle ends, and allow a new one to begin.
The lovely neighborhood still existed. Our home was warm, cozy, and appealing. We still took day trips on weekends and gathered with friends. Our son and daughter visited. Yet we had chosen our neighborhood to do one thing, to be the place where we raised our family.
We had thought about our future life when we were young. We dreamed of retiring somewhere warm, maybe Mexico, perhaps the beach. Then, our imaginations turned into action.
We bought a lot in a beach town in Florida in 2009.
Fast forward to now, the contractors were nearly complete with the house. So naturally, we were excited to be on the cusp of planning a move from our home state Pennsylvania to Florida.
Imagine your new lifestyle.
I learned the importance of knowing what lifestyle you wanted—our first choice as a couple landed us in a suburban neighborhood to raise our family.
Now in our fifties, we wanted walking access or short-drive access to things to do: restaurants and shops, with a condensed feeling that nothing was too far away. We wanted year-round seasonal warmth—plus easy access for visiting guests from our home state.
Fortunately, we never vacationed in our new hometown, so we did not have that vacation stars-in-our-eyes bias. Instead, we took a leap of faith to buy the lot based on the feel and vibe of the community. It met our lifestyle criteria.
In retrospect, we were lucky it took so long to build our house (mainly due to the effects of the pandemic). We frequently flew to the Florida site to check on the construction progress. We got to know our new community visit by visit.
We found neighborhood kindness there too.
When we weren't there, neighbors texted us with progress updates. We got photos after the hurricanes, letting us know the house build was okay. And they were okay too.
Conclusion
So when it's finally time to pack up and go, I imagine it all feeling surreal. However, if there is one thing I learned, retirement is not about receding. We grew, expanded, and created a new life when we were young. It's time we do that again and allow for something new.
“Life is a journey. How we travel is really up to us. We can just flow with the tide or follow our own dreams.” --Paulo Coelho