Retirement Adventures! Episode 5...Through Cool Waters...

Sometimes when everything seems to be a detour or a wall to where I want to be it's difficult to keep my head up, breathing slowly & surely.  There's a rushing sound in my ears. My body seems overwhelmed with the currents and eddies causing me to close my eyes and gasp for air. I try in vain to fight the obstacles...thinking the harder I try, the harder I work, I'll break through to the goal I have in my head.  Reaching up--I find that there's at least two or three goose eggs where I've banged my thick skull against the driftwood floating about!

This house hunting river has been a tempest.  Putting offers in and negotiating feels to me like a river rapids with jutting rocks and driftwood wedged everywhere. I feel battered and bruised when I walk away without "my house". Circumstances out of my control dictate a timetable that causes me angst.  Trusting someone else to do their best for me at the bargaining table has been my personal thrall.  I have felt unmoored.

However, with any storm or raging flood waters...afterward there is usually a calm, serene, sweet smelling pool of water to wade through without worry...without losing my way. I rely heavily on God (& the Colonel!)as well as my son and some of my closest friends to help me during the tempest...until I reach the cool green waters.  Though I have tried earnestly to trust God (& the Colonel!)to find the house meant for our family--old habits and patterns arose that kept putting me in a place of fear, of feeling lost and a bit alone.  Silly me!! I know in my head I am never alone...that I am never separated from  God--or the love that He (& the Colonel!, my sons and friends)have for me.  That good things will come. That lessons will be learned.  That I will find the serene place that I belong.

So let me just say...that when you feel like you're  drowning in angst...let go!  Hold on to the ones you love. They will buoy you. Your river will calm. Your goose eggs will recede. You can walk confidently through the still, green waters to a thankful grateful place called home!

Oh...and while I'm here...we have a signed contract on house #3!! Now we need for the appraisal to equal our loan amount to move in the direction of being homeowners!!