As I sit and look out at the sunrise over the Rockfish Valley and watch it slowly melt the frost covering the Eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains, I contemplate our upcoming changes. This is our third annual anniversary weekend to Wintergreen Resort in Virginia where we are celebrating our eighth anniversary. It has been a wonderful tradition but one that will be put on hold for a few years.
When we return from our trip, I must get down to serious organizing of our things at home. In about three weeks, moving trucks will start coming to take it all away and there are three stages that need to be laid out. As with everyone, I'm sure we have more stuff than we think we have. We have been in this house for 7 years and that is the longest either of us has been in one place since we left our childhood homes.
We are fortunate to have found two people who we think will be great tenants for our house while we are gone. It was a search full of worry. We have found many tenants before but never for the house we care the most about and the house in which we plan to live again. We knew it needed to be someone who would appreciate the view, the water, the beach, and the character of it, but that narrows down the pool of potential tenants significantly.
The tenant search was only one of the many things that has been giving us restless nights, aching necks, uneasy stomachs, and short tempers lately. This moving thing is stressful, and throw in an overseas move for the whole family and it magnifies the stress one hundred fold. Our life is complicated. We have rentals to look after. We had repairs to our house which were being put off but now need to be expedited. We have a boat to winterize and store. We have financial matters to wrap up. We have a dog who needed a good home because he could not come with us. This was the hardest and saddest of all. Last weekend we took him to his new home. I believe he will be very loved there, but I fear he really misses us and that is painful. I am probably humanizing his feelings too much, but the emotions are still raw with us. He is very missed!
We will also miss birthdays and holidays with family and summer outings with friends. We will miss going out on our boat (Chris knew as soon as we made that commitment we would hear something about Italy, and sure enough...). We will miss our parents, our sisters, our nieces and nephews. We hope they all come to visit but we know it won't be enough. We hope they understand that this is not forever and we will return in the blink of an eye. So as we sit here in our beautiful condo on top of the Blue Ridge Mountains, with its spectacular panoramic view, we contemplate things to come. Good things to come.
Buried under the stress of moving and temporary loss of people and traditions, we are immensely excited about new traditions, new travels, and new experiences. Where will we spend Christmas? The alps? Austria? I bet Salzburg is amazingly beautiful at Christmas time. How about Rome? What will we do next summer? How about a week in Spain for the Festival in Pamplona?!? I can't wait to see Spain. What will we do for our tenth wedding anniversary? That is coming up soon. The options are endless.
Besides travel, I look forward to simply enjoying Italian life in and around Vicenza. I want to learn the language and especially would like the children to learn it. I want to explore the markets and taste fantastic food and wine. I want to join the locals in their evening passagiata and take in all there is to absorb in this culture. Yes, there is much to look forward to in the days, weeks, months, and the three years ahead.
So tomorrow it is back to our life in transition. We are enjoying the journey. That is an important part of life that we must not forget. Life is the journey.
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