When we sell our flat in London hubs and I will have effectively rendered ourselves homeless.
If we want to we can journey around the world following in the footsteps of my travelling homeschool friends who sell up and simplify life by letting go of possessions and making memories to be retold around the campfire of their twilight years.
Letting go of the material stuff is a major step for most of us. For me knowing I have tangibles I can hang onto help me feel secure. I don’t fret about keeping precious knick-knacks, something as simple as Ted and Ratty who have accompanied me on all the trips I have ever taken during my married life.
Their familiar faces, peeking at me from my carry-on bag,
send a rush of familiarity to my soul that I am grateful for. My heart slows down a bit. In case you don’t know, I’m not an adrenalin fiend!
Putting all the possessions we had finally whittled down into a manageable storage unit or two was not as gutting as I expected. I banished the niggle of scenarios of never seeing my well loved collection of eclectia again, to the back burner.
If that was in the future I’d deal with it when I arrived there. I don’t dwell on foreshadowings
Letting go of the emotional baggage is not so easy, it can’t be wrapped up and packaged in boxes perhaps never to be unpacked again. Emotional baggage jumps out and meets me at every turn,
“I’m here!”
is its battle cry when a situation arises that jogs a memory, or a smell brings childhood flooding back or music drowns me in melancholy.
Sometimes the nudges are welcome like the gentle rain reminding me of my frizzy hair battles at school! Or the sudden rush of wind as a tube train blasts into the station carrying me back to heady moments of independence when I was in my early twenties.
When we sell our London flat we will return to America changed, transformed, prepared to start again.
We’ll take the opportunity to come at our empty nesting lives from a different angle, refreshed, balanced, settled.
Whether we choose to pick up where we left off and avail ourselves of the cherished contents of our storage units remains to be seen.
The prospect is exhilarating.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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