The Transient Life

We decided, due to an ordinance change through Provo city that now allows us to rent out our home (prior, to this, we could not, due to a restrictive covenant stating that our home had to be owner occupied for 15 years after we purchased the home), it would be best to rent our home for a few years, perhaps indefinitely as an investment.

Maybe we’ll move back there after 4 years in the AF.  Who knows?  Regardless, at this point, we have it leased to a great family who has committed to loving & living in it for 2 years.

It’s a leap of faith, for sure (never wanted to be a landlord), but financially speaking, it’s the best road to take.  Our home has been shown over 30 times, we got an offer after 4 days of listing, but the offer, the showings, nothing has come of it (we didn’t take the offer for a number of reasons, the most important being it would mean losing a lot of money).

To say I love my home would be an understatement.  I feel like my home is very much a part of our family.  I’m one of those that is every bit a homemaker.  I like making my space clean, beautiful, & organized.  When I’m not in my own space, where I can create & design it to my liking, I feel a little lost.

My blogging friend, Bethany, of Rinse. Repeat. shared similar feelings in a recent blog post, where she opens up about feeling lost & alone while living in the middle east while her husband works as a security-type contractor.

I can relate with a lot of what she’s going through.

Right now, we’re living the life of transients.  In my last post, Dreena commented:  wait, I thought you guys just moved?

Yes, we did.  Sorta.

We moved up to Washington for interim to be with family, until we move to San Antonio, where Joseph will be stationed with the AF.  We still had our home in Provo, which was for sale.  It’s now no longer for sale, so we have to move out completely & make room for renters.  We hope to have everything moved out by tomorrow, at which point we’ll resume our road trip & head down to St. George, UT, followed by Las Vegas, then it’s off to the Grand Canyon.

This transient life, I’m afraid, may be my life for the forseeable future.

To be honest, it scares the pants of me.  Which is why I’m happy to do it.  After all, remember when I did this?

I don’t mind doing things that scare me, but that doesn’t take away my feelings of anxiety, worry, & sometimes sadness.

The work of moving (boy, is it work!), the stress of finding proper housing (& turns out there’s a long waiting list for on-base military housing, so we may have to live away from base & commute), the anxiety of not having a place that I can love & really make home–this is what scares me.

I’m a pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps kind of girl.  If I’m feeling sad, I’m confident there’s a solution.  If I’m feeling insecure, out of place, unloved, what have you, I know there’s something I can do to remedy it.  But more & more, I’m realizing, sometimes you just feel sad, sometimes it’s lonely.

Sometimes it’s just plain hard, & there’s nothing to be done about it.

♥♥♥

Is it important for you to have a place that you can call home?