[wendyquat]

Originally Posted by graciegirl

The first home we bought was for us to live in half year, snowbirding home. We decorated it with found stuff and fun stuff and enjoyed it for four years.

The home we built a year ago in October was a full time residence AND we had sold our first home here and our residence in Cincy and we were homeless. One of the kind souls on this forum offered us their home in Harmeswood to rent while our home was being built and we drove down pulling a big rental trailer with our stuff to put in the large garage of the rental. We had our really GOOD furniture packed into a POD and stored during our home build, the rest we put in a storage unit in Cincy. We moved into our new house in October and in November Sweetie drove down all alone and through a snowstorm with a big rental UHaul truck. We contracted to have unloaders unload the furniture, but we brought a lot of boxes from the garage in Harmeswood to our new house in our van. Sweetie did most of the heavy stuff, I hate to admit that I can't lift heavy stuff like I used too.

I want to point out one thing that we sometimes fail to see. We are going through a LOT of life changes in this move, most of us. We are ceasing working, we are moving away from known and loved people and known and accepted ways of doing things. We are forced to give up, and sometimes give away things that we had planned for, saved for and worked for and we do not have the stamina for the physical part of the move that we once had. We, as a couple, went through more serious and tense situations that we did not expect and I feel we have a wonderful marriage but we really, really lashed out at each other due to frustration and stress. Now the stress was not over terribly important things, like a life threatening illness but it was TOUGH. Kids can really hand out a guilt trip to a lot of us for leaving them.

I have had a couple of dear friends move here and buckle under the stress or the after effects of the move for awhile, so give yourself all of the kindness and slack you can, because emotionally it is very HARD to do even if you want to do it.

If you find yourself down, or sad or unexplainably moody, seek a doctor's help. It is more common than you know and since we are old "soldiers" we tend to ignore our own emotional battles sometimes.

As usual, well said GG!