Taking Flight

My first thought upon awakening yesterday morning was, OH MY GOD WE'RE MOVING.

I've spent nearly twelve years in Bentonville which is the longest that I have squatted in the same place. Ever.

In my entire life ever.

I think I'm considered a local now, in spite of the fact that some people still cock their head to the side, squint their eyes and say, "You ain't from around here, are ya'?" Yeah, maybe not, but I can eyeball a new subdivision and tell you what was there a decade ago.

Now, I'm moving to a strange place where I will need a GPS to navigate my way around. I'll have to find a new dentist, doctor, orthodontist and someone qualified to inject Botox into my head. We're going to have to locate a gym, an organic food market and a farmer we can trust. Registering the children for school means that I am going to spend hours in my house pouring through boxes of paperwork that I have meant to file for YEARS, searching for immunization cards and birth certificates. I will finally be forced to buy that new filing cabinet to replace the one that I dented while using it as a stepladder to clean a ceiling fan. I know that I should look to the positive and embrace all my forthcoming organization but what I really want to do is just pay someone to be me for the next five weeks.

Did I mention that I am master accumulator? Oh yes. After our moving scare last year, I promised myself that I would be much better about my purchasing habits. I vowed that sale prices would no longer cause a blip on my shopping radar. If those cute pair of silver sandals made my Fred Flintstone feet look like encased sausages, the $12 price tag wouldn't matter. I'd leave them on the shelf. I told myself that just because I entered a bookstore did not mean that I had to actually purchase anything, especially considering the fact that there are STACKS of unread books littering my nightstand.

Well, my promises ended up going the way of my New Year's resolutions and yesterday, I paid for my sins when I tackled my closet. It took me two hours. I ended up with a bag of garbage, three bags of clothes, a bag of shoes (some I'd never had on my feet) and Christmas decorations that I hadn't seen in five years. There was a stack of VCR tapes that had been in my possession since before my thirteen year old son was born. I'd held onto them because they were not labeled and I was hesitant to throw them out in case they might contain an episode of Miami Vice that I hadn't seen. It took every ounce of strength but I purged. My closet is now a clean, organized work of art. It may be the only thing that I show potential renters when they come to look at the house.

Yes, renters. Our housing market is still in the tank so there's no way that we can sell either one of our houses right now. We'll be repeating the process we went through last summer trying to find a suitable family to lease our home and I am assuming things will go more smoothly this time around since every single nutbar within fifty miles answered our ad last year and we should have weeded though that element already. Sweet, sweet Jesus, I hope so.

There is a bright spot to all of this work, though. I love our new house. It's got everything we need, in a great location and roomy enough that I will be able to hide from my children if need be. I especially love that we don't own it. Sounds a little looney to shell out an obscene amount of money for rent, eh? Yeah, it sure does and it goes against every financial principle that I've ever learned but at the end of the day, it all boils down to freedom. We've already got two houses we're maintaining and it's not like there's a long line of bankers queued up outside our door wanting to lend us money for a third. Besides, if there is one lesson that this slump in our economy has driven home to me, it's that less debt equals more freedom and I like knowing that we can disencumber ourselves with a mere thirty days notice.

In about three and a half weeks, we will no longer be Bentonville residents. I couldn't identify it Sunday morning but I think that niggling emotion in the pit of my belly was excitement.