Moving on, but where?
This next phase of my life will begin by staring at a map, confused about where to stick the next pin.
Our grandparents didn’t worry about this sort of thing. Mine stayed, more or less, in the same town where they’d been born. Although my paternal grandparents traveled all over, the several places where they lived could be lassoed by a smallish rope. Their circle on the map was tight. You got old where you were, and your children made that circle around you because everything they needed was right there.
But now children move away, often in directions opposite from each other, and we parents are left staring at the map and asking, “Now where?”
I’m closing in on a major move. Now that the kids are growing up, we don’t need a large house anymore. Come spring, the last of the new windows will be installed and the outside painting will be done, and we’ll put up the “For Sale” sign. Eventually, we’ll have to leave this house, and most likely, this neighborhood.
So we’ve decided to size down, but an even larger and more important decision looms. Where will we live this simpler life? Our goal – and the goal for many parents of grown-up children – is to be where the kids and grandkids will be. The problem comes in predicting that.
Friends in our community will be downsizing, too. They’re looking for a house at the midpoint between where their two daughters and their families live. That sounds like a quandary that can be settled with a map, a pencil and a ruler. The points on either end of the pencil line are settled and not likely to move any time soon.
My points on the map will be bouncing all around for a while. As my son completes his degree, he will go where the work is. My daughter is still deciding on colleges. Sane parents don’t pick up and move to where their kids go to college – and nor do they tag along as their children start their careers – but I/we have to decide on a house. This would be easier if this house weren’t too big for us now. We’d just stay put for a while.
My friend Margot once coerced me into joining a women’s soccer league. Although I assured her that my feet did not work that way, and that I’d never been any good at team sports, she insisted that “anyone can play” and that “you’ll be fine.”
I had no business being on that field. Playing soccer requires the players to know ahead of time where the ball is going to be. I wandered around the field like a truffle pig, head down, looking for the ball. Eventually Margot told me to go and sit down.
That’s how I feel now: confused by the geography of this decision. My children have opportunities and talents that will allow them to move their pins all over the map, seeing the world, making their way as they bounce around.
That leaves the parents behind. That’s as it should be, I suppose. But now what?
Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.