it’s about to getting really interesting or really boring

Now, I understand I’ve neglected my blog this summer and …. now the summer has turned to autumn, etc., and the weeds are growing taller and thicker each day. Lots of reasons. Just life getting in the way.

On top of all that we’ve been busy because we’re moving three weeks from today.

Up to the local mountains.

Yep. We’re about to become rednecks or hippies or hicks or peckerwoods or all of the above. It’s our dream, you see, being peckerwoods.

Well, it IS something MB and I have wanted to do for several years but it’s just never worked out until now. It’s been an interesting confluence of desires that brought this about. We’ve always wanted to try living up there and my parents, who also love the area, were looking for an investment property. So the four of us went house-hunting, a month-long exercise in holding my tongue which met with patchy success at best. Really, after a few weekends of clenched jaws and tight lips, I didn’t think there was any way the four of us would agree on a place since our tastes are quite divergent. But somehow we did. Miraculously, we did. We found a place we all agreed on, my parents made an offer, got an insanely low interest rate, and here were are.

Moving to the mountains.

We’re renting the place from them which I hope (fingers crossed) will be a positive experience. We’ll be living in the biggest place we’ve ever lived in in our whole marriage. I hardly know what to do with that much space and we definitely don’t have enough furniture to fill it all. There will be vast empty spaces begging to be filled — and begging for a long time, I imagine. Those of you who’ve been reading here for long time know we lost our condo four years ago and have been renting a different condo in a less-than-desirable neighborhood since then. It’s been rough. It messes with your head and how you see yourself, those kinds of losses. You move on, but it’s not the same you that moves on. After so much loss and disappointment for so long, you get used to wanting less and less for yourself. Or maybe you get used to expecting less and less for yourself. You erase all desires from your heart and mind and become an accidental Buddhist.

So while this is something we’d wanted and hoped for for a long time, we’re used to wanting and hoping for things that don’t happen. I’m still in a state of shock that it’s actually happening. We’ll be living in a yellow house with a green door nestled among the oaks and pines and quiet.

I’ve always wanted to live in a yellow house with a red door but we can definitely paint the door.

I’m pinching myself.

Well, in between panic attacks.

I don’t know for sure what life will be like up there. It’s a small town. Really small. It’s a tourist trap on weekends. Allow me to paint with a very broad brush here and say the place seems to be populated by both a fair share of right-wing homeschooling Christians and fair share of left-wing hemp-wearing hippies. Honestly, I’m not sure where we’ll fit in on my intolerant little spectrum there. (Narrow-minded town bigots, I guess.) I imagine we’re too hippie for the Christians and too Christian for the hippies, but we’ll have to wait and see. Maybe we’ll have to create our own offshoot of the spectrum and make everyone wonder how to fit into our special branch of things. “Are you a narrow-minded bigot! Come sit by us!”

I know it’s going to be an adjustment. I don’t know how big an adjustment it will be. I can’t know for sure until we’re there.

Oh, here’s the other thing:

For those of you who have read it, this town is the little town mentioned in our Maybe Church saga.

And, yes, “Joe” lives there.

Indeed he does.

As I said, we’ve wanted to do this for a long time, long before we ever set foot in that crazy place and experienced that bizarre scenario. We even shelved the whole idea for a couple of years after leaving because we knew that Joe lived there. But then MB said, “Look. We can’t keep making decisions based on Joe’s comfort level. He doesn’t get to control our lives.”

Still, I was dubious for a long time.

But MB’s right. Joe doesn’t get to influence our decisions anymore, so he didn’t.

We’re moving there despite the fact that he lives there. I’m sure we’ll run into him, his wife, his kids. I have no idea what will happen but I assume they will be as friendly now as they were then. Ahem. MB has declared that when he sees Joe, he’s going to run up to him, give him a huge bear hug, and say with a choke in his voice, “Oh, Joe. Joe! I’m so glad you’re here!”

While I doubt he’ll actually do that, the mental image makes me giggle because it’s so absurd.

So life in this small town? Well, it’s about to get really interesting or really boring.

Stay tuned for tales of angst and woe as we transition to redneck hippies.

Or something.