Welcome to my new blog

This is a place where I hope to reflect on various changes I am going through at this wonderful stage of life. As a man in his mid fifties, I am anticipating retiring from public education and exploring what I shall do with the rest of my life.

One of the most imminent changes is one of residence. My partner and I have been living in a house for the last 12 years that we purchased when we had on adolescent and a pre-adolescent. We needed the space - a fact that became very clear when my partner's parents came for a three week visit. Now, both daughters have become wonderful young adults and have moved away from home. This leaves us with a four bedroom home for the two of us and our two little dogs. We are moving into an inner-city high rise condominium. A huge change for me and a change for my change adverse partner. I have never lived in an apartment other than my first year of marriage when we lived in an apartment in a converted older home. We also lived for a year in a walk-up before renting a house. For the last 30 years, I have lived in houses.

The change is actually intriguing me. I have, at times, fantasized about what it would be like to live in a high rise. I think that I imagined I would wind up in one since seeing the movie "Making Love" way back in the early 80's. The gay character in that movie wound up living with his partner in a trendy New York apartment. When we were raising children, it did not make sense to live in an apartment. I have always believed that children need space and a yard. I also convinced myself that I liked gardening and planting stuff. I really have to say that after 30 years in houses, I am really sick of gardening. I like the results, however, I hate weeding.

So we are buying a condo in the inner city. Fortunately for us, we have found one that is fairly large and will not be a total shock to us. We are used to lots of space. To try to move into the new condos of 800 square feet would be a larger shock than we are prepared to experience. We shall see what the future brings, however, I am hoping this is the last stop before the "home."

Downsizing means lightening our load considerably. I have been a bit of a pack rat for my entire career. Getting rid of my teaching materials, my "souvenirs" and many of the little knick nacks gathered over the career will be a task of conflicting emotions - I look forward to being "free" of the stuff, but I will have a hard time "releasing" it. Once we have done this, we are going to try to initiate a policy of zero accumulation: before we bring something new into our home, something has to go. We shall see.

Any advice for us? We are open to feedback!