Decisions, part 1

One year ago, I sought your advice in this post. I needed help figuring out the rest of my life; specifically, where to spend it. My thinking was that seven miles south of nowhere was probably not a good place to retire safely or successfully. You came through for me with dozens of great suggestions that might meet my relocation criteria, and I spent the next six months dutifully researching all of them.

I tried to picture myself living back east but couldn’t get beyond the population density and humidity. I tried to picture myself in Texas, but there was that humidity thing again. Eastern Washington and Oregon began to rise to the top of the list, but western Colorado rose higher.

I zeroed in on a few areas, and all roads led to Grand Junction and some of the smaller towns nearby. I monitored the weather there throughout the winter. It seemed similar enough to the 7MSN's that I started thinking I could live there. Did you know that Grand Junction is the fifth safest place in the U.S. when it comes to natural disasters? Call me a sissy, but avoiding tornadoes, forest fires, and earthquakes was a key relocation criterion. 

In practical terms, Grand Junction is only 450 miles and one state over, so moving there might be slightly less stressful than to a place farther away. As I continued trying to picture myself a Coloradan, I set up Google alerts to follow the area news and learn more about what I might be getting myself into. I even checked out rentals on Airbnb to see where I could stay on a reconnaissance trip come summer.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, a presidential election happened and I haven’t been able to step away from the news since, no matter how hard I try. In the middle of nowhere, it's very easy to pretend that the swirling chaos in our country doesn't affect me, though it certainly does ... it's just easy to pretend otherwise when cows and snakes are your neighbors, not batshit crazy people. I have never been as grateful for my isolation as I am now. When I find myself literally screaming at the screen when the person in the White House speaks, I can turn it off, walk into the pasture, and throw my arms around a donkey. We all have coping mechanisms and this is mine. That it happens every single day for the same reason leaves me without words.

Anyway, by early spring, I had a plan. I would visit Grand Junction during the summer, affirm it was the place for me, buy land, then come back and put the 7MSN on the market. I would stay here until it sold, knowing that it could be a few months or a few years. When it did sell, the animals and I would move to our new land and live in a trailer or something while I had a house and barn built for us. Piece of cake.

But then I started down the worst-case-scenario path. I spent hours on Zillow, looking at pricing and sales trends for New Mexico horse properties. What if I couldn’t sell the 7MSN at a price I deemed fair? What if I couldn’t find a buyer at all? I’d be stuck with land in another state that I couldn’t use.

The less risky approach would be to sell the ranch before I buy land elsewhere. But how would that work? Where would I live until I found or built a new place? Since the new place I was envisioning is exactly like the old place – except on a paved road and maybe a little closer to a town – did moving even make sense anymore? The 7MSN holds my heart and soul; I feel safe here, and it feels more like home than any place I've ever lived. Every time I thought about trying to move away from it, my head would explode and I’d become a walking blob of sleep-deprived stress.

I circled back to my original premise – that seven miles south of nowhere isn’t a good place to live for the rest of my life – and tried to rethink it.

I’ve lived here for 12 years, and I’ve gotten damned good at it. I’ve learned the secrets and tricks to keep the place humming along, and while it may not always be easy, it’s do-able, usually fun, extremely satisfying, and always an adventure. Except for the road thing, the 7MSN has proven to be the perfect place for my animals and for me. 

So for now, I’m not going to mess all that up just because I’m worried about eventually being too old to take care of this place. I'm staying put, right where I belong. Maybe when I’m too old to live here, I’m too old to live. I’m ok with that.

With that enormous decision out of the way, I can focus on other important stuff, like what I want to do in retirement … which starts in 141 days, but who’s counting? More on that part of the decision in the next post.

There's no place like home.