FINIS

This all started with Loose Change, Dan’s desire to move south and my need to process what that meant. I’m now at the end of this journey. Not quite where I had planned, “a sunset viewing from Mallory Square in Key West”, but close enough. At the time I said, “My inertia comes from other places that I need to explore. Extended family, a multitude of friends, community and neighborhood, a great job, a house I love and a feeling of stability I'm afraid to uproot.”

I know now that wasn’t true. I lacked (we both lacked) the catalyst required to make a big change. For my 17 loyal readers you know that the catalyst triggered over a year ago when my 15-year position ended with my employer in Milwaukee. We were faced with a choice – find suitable replacement income in the area, or move. Dan and I chose to move, because if not then, when?

Was it easy? No. We went insane for a while, dramatically downsizing (but in hindsight, not quite enough). Internet searches found us a rental that would take a big dog and landed us in a 624-square-foot house. And can I just say that people who want to live in a tiny house are bat-shit crazy.

It’s been a wild, scary, lonely, and exhilarating year. We found a new home in a community that we love. I’ve found a terrific job doing work that energizes me. We’ve both met new people and are starting to add to our collection of friends (there’s always room for more). And we are settling in to our new home, our new environment and the consequences of our decision to move.

Did we lose things along the way? Yes, proximity to family and friends, familiar routines, faces and places, and the comfort of knowing every street and landmark. Have we gained things? Again, yes. Dan is finally warm year-round, we know we can meet any challenge and we’ve found out that our children are our biggest role models and cheerleaders. (Shout-out to Carl and Hunter for great advice along the way!)

So here we are, just a 428-mile drive from Mallory Square, in a very lovely community. We have great neighbors, we found a welcoming coven of liberal thinkers and we enjoy the lifestyle of year-round warm. I’ve had the opportunity to reconnect with cousins who’ve included us in family gatherings even though we were quite distant before we landed here in Florida, and for that we are both grateful.

Change is hard. Big change is really hard. But it can be done, even if all you start with is loose change.

Songs that Resonate:

Photograph - Nickelback (for Carl and Hunter)

100 Years - Five for Fighting

Sea Change

All good things come to an end and while I'm not claiming it was good, this blog is nearing its end. I've got a few more things to say, but for now, Dan says it best.

“We just returned from a vacation in Key West.  Dan, excited about the idea of moving, needed to ACT.  He proceeded to find all the loose pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters in various containers about the house.  He pooled all the coins and took them to the bank, making a $123.00 deposit.  ‘Paula, we need to pay down that bill, so mail it in.”  And that’s it, he’s off and running – next stop, Key West.”—Excerpt from Loose Change, Paula’s first Castle to the Keys blog, November 7, 2010.

It’s six years later, nearing the end of Paula’s “three to eight year odyssey to leave our beloved Victorian in Wisconsin and move to a conch house in the Florida Keys.” We have just returned from another great vacation in Key West, this time taking a 57-minute flight to our home in Safety Harbor which, without its two additions, would have been small enough to fit in perfectly on most streets on our favorite island. Our move didn’t take us all the way to the Keys, but we can drive there in a few hours. Close enough.

This past trip to Fantasy Fest continued a pattern that would have been a great concern for 2010 Dan. Eight years ago at our first FF, I took 1,354 pictures. This year I took 128, most of Paula in outfits or group shots with friends. The Fest has become an incredible reunion of established and new friends from all over the world. Admittedly, friends who are pretty quick to shed their clothes and jump into a closed swimming pool at 3am. To our Fantasy Fest friends who we did see, didn’t see, or still need to meet—see you in about 50 weeks.

Tutu pub krawl

When Paula started her blog it was about taking chances and moving—something that at the time seemed so far away, so crazy that we both doubted it would actually happen. But down deep, we started to make it happen--$123 at a time. Moving wasn’t on my mind when I sold my motorcycle or our convertible, when I donated all of the lumber I was saving in the hayloft for “the next big project”, or gave away the fiberglass car body I was always going to make into something. It was calm on Kavanaugh Place, but just below the surface was a salt water thermocline and a strong current racing south. We just needed to get off the boat.

People have asked us how we made the move. We both responded that you start today—get a donation to Goodwill once a week and make sure every week the dumpster is packed to the brim. Don’t buy more stuff. Upon hearing that there’s usually a pause, followed by “Well we knew you’d be OK!”

When you jump off the dive boat you put your fist on the top of your head to signal to the other divers that you are OK and ready to descend. Last March two very shaky divers put their fists on their heads, held hands and deflated their BCD’s. We’re both happy with where we've surfaced. 

Music that resonates:
Tourist Town Bar - Michael McCloud

One tiny facet of our big move

I really gotta call bullshit on that whole tiny house movement. Let me explain. When moving from a large house to a “tiny” house you must take the following steps:

1. Sort all of your possessions into two equal piles labeled “keep” and “don’t keep.”
2. Sell, donate or discard the “don’t keep” pile.
3. Sort the remaining “keep” pile into two equal piles labeled “keep” and “don’t keep.”
4. Sell, donate or discard the “don’t keep” pile.
5. Sort the remaining “keep” pile into two equal piles labeled “keep” and “don’t keep.”
6. Sell, donate or discard the “don’t keep” pile.
7. Cross your fingers that the remaining “keep” pile will fit in the moving truck.
8. Move to your new tiny house.

When you get to your new tiny house you will fill one entire room with boxes you can’t unpack because you have no available space. This is when you will realize that living in a tiny house is not a cute thing to do and you don’t want to be trendy. You will then search for a new house. You will find a new house that is at least twice the size of your tiny house. The twice-as-large as the tiny house feels huge. Here are the steps for the next move from tiny house to the twice-as-large as the tiny house:

1. Move all of your possessions into the new “twice-as-large as the tiny house”.
2. Recognize that it all fits, but not easily.
3. Re-evaluate everything you own.
4. Sell some of the things, for example, living room chairs, because it just doesn’t work in the new “twice-as-large as the tiny house” house.
5. Buy replacement furniture, forgetting that you don’t live in a house that is even one-third the size of the original large house you left.
6. Lament, after delivery truck leaves, that you should have selected two love seats instead of a couch and a love seat.
7. Return the coffee table because it hasn’t been delivered yet.
8. Squeeze the rest in.
9. Begin looking for consignment shops to sell those irreplaceable possessions that had too much sentimental value to leave behind.
10. Fully embrace the concept of memories over the possessions and continue to move forward.

Change is hard. Big changes are the hardest. Each step requires an evaluation of what you can take with you and what, inevitably, will be left behind. It is really hard to let go of those possessions, routines and comforts that defined your prior life. Reinvention happens with baby steps forward, awkward lurches, irrational fear and many missteps. With each step forward you are farther away from a place you can’t magically go back to, because it has ceased to exist. All you can do is embrace the new, keep the memories, honor the connections that remain and settle into a new routine.

The house may only be twice-as-large as a tiny house, but in turn, the heart expands to make room for what’s new to nestle next to the memories of what was.