Saturday 7 May 2011

Drifting

What makes a home? What does the word home mean?

Home is something that DH and I still search for. Is home something more than four walls? I always imagined that it would be a safe place where we would feel at peace, content, at "one".

We are still unsure of what we will do and where we will live. I used to say to DH that all doors would be considered. But I think we have slowly come to the conclusion that living in southern Europe is probably out of the question for us. The main reason for this is that we like cool weather. We have never been hot weather people or sun worshippers. Mostly we prefer rain and overcast weather. I realise that there probably is a certain level of acclimatisation to the heat but, I don't want to endure, I want to live and enjoy the great outdoors without feeling like we have to hide inside because of the ferocious heat, which is usually what we ended up doing in the past.

The other thing is that DH gets bored easily. He does like to have some work to do. DH likes to pick up odd jobs, he likes to feel that he is being useful and he misses the transactional nature of working. This is something that I did not anticipate. I should have realised that DH was probably not as disenchanted with the world of work as I was. This is another issue why moving to southern Europe could be problematic.

Another realisation is that I don't feel like I hate living in this country anymore. Yes, there are places where I would REALLY rather live, but I have to face reality that unless I win the lottery or find a a spare half a million dollars so I can buy a green card I will never be able to live in Oregon or Washington state.

I think we have also realised that we really want a house of our own. We have looked in the South Wales area and nothing appeals to us, in fact a lot of it is all rather depressing, I mean souless, grey, boring, uninspiring. I dont want to buy the wrong thing and end up regretting it. But if we did find a house we liked it would save us money on rent.

I suppose we are just drifting at the moment.

6 comments:

slbma said...

We have certainly spent a great deal of time drifting... sometimes it has felt like a life sentence. Never knowing what to really do. Just today we retrieved a book to help us on our latest endeavor and inside the cover I had penned a personal message... dated 2007. And our dream to get to where we feel we almost finally are, started even before that.

Hang in there. Believe in what you feel. You will work it out together. xxx

KoR said...

I can't see that there is anything wrong with drifting for the moment as long as you are comfortable with it. Financially, you can afford to wait a year or two, I would have thought, given that a modest decline in UK house prices seems likely.

If you like the outdoors, does smallholding appeal? It's a big commitment, obviously, but not the same as you are used to.

Quest said...

Having spent half my life in the UK, and half in the US, I know what you mean when you describe dreary english neighborhoods lol. As you know, from a recent post of mine complaining about the US desert town in which I currently reside, I am at that other end of the climate spectrum of furnacelike heat. If I could find something in the middle that doesn't cost a fortune, things could be cool. For the time being, my solution is to take day trips and weekenders as a means of taking a break from the desert and scouting out other locales.

Dreamer said...

slbma, I know exactly how you feel when you say life sentence, if I think about it this wandering, restlessness has been going on for a long time. I used to think that we had lots of options, now it seems we have so few, and the options which seem viable just seem to be more of the same that we did before. Problem is I think that we never really had a plan of what to do after the escape, we were so consumed with working towards that goal. We thought oh we might do this or this but practically those things arnt open to us. We really do despair some days, I dont know if we will ever find it, you know home. I dont think DH and I ever had a home.

Dreamer said...

Salis, Yes I agree financially it doesnt hurt us to rent for a while, but I hate renting for the reason that I want my own place to do as I please with if you know what I mean, I long to feel settled to find "home". A small holding is not a bad idea but even in this area they go for quite a lot of money, more than we can allocate to housing.

Quest, isnt it depressing, unless you have got big money its all dreary, depressing and dull. I sympathise with living in the desert but I do think your solution is to move to Oregon LOL So I can come and visit and go hiking:)

Quest said...

Hey wouldn't that be fun? I'll keep you posted because you never know .... Washington state was always high on my list of possible residences :) We've visited several times and really like it.