As I write about our Big Move to Panama and until I get us caught up to current time, occasionally I will interject a post that is actually in current time. This is such a post.
It is 5:45 am and I am in my kitchen, getting ready for today’s big house sale. John and I have been working for weeks preparing for the “First Ever, Friends and F
amily Only, Exclusively Exclusive, John and Robyn Cole’s Complete Estate Sale”. And for weeks I’ve been enduring the comment of: “Y’know Robyn, an Estate Sale is for when someone died.”
Yea, bite me.
So anyway, today is the big day and I’m busy wrapping up some dishes that I refuse to sell. It’s quiet and John is still asleep upstairs. As I look around my kitchen and my great room (which wasn’t a great room until I knocked down a wall…), I am flooded with memories of the past 17 years in this house. The parties, the potlucks and Superbowl parties. The friends and neighbors who have graced our home. The birthdays, the Thanksgivings, the Christmases – especially the recent bittersweet one 3 weeks before John’s mother passed.
I am reminded that every spare moment I’ve had since I first laid eyes on this bank-owned wreck in April of 1993 has been to work on some part of it. Every weekend for 17 years I have either been painting something, nailing something, ripping something out, sewing something, creating something or buying something to improve this home. John and I have ripped out walls, replaced both the front and back yards, resurfaced the pool, replaced the roof and the windows and the furnace and the pool equipment. We’ve watched 2 kittens and a puppy grow old before our eyes and then pass on.
So I ask myself if I really want to be doing this. Especially considering the wide-eyed looks I get when I tell friends I’m quitting my job and moving to Panama. Is this right? Do I really want to lease out my house to a family with four boys under the age of 8? Should I stop it right now, run upstairs, fling on the bedroom lights and yell in John’s sleepy face: “Stop this insanity! We’re not going anywhere!”
Except that I’m excited as hell! I cannot wait to go. Bring on the adventure!
Robin – How did the big sale go? I thought about you a lot this past week, knowing that the sale is a big step in your move process. I enjoy reading your blog as well as your comments in the Boquete Panama forum! Bona