Living the Dream

There comes a time when you turn around and your children choose not to hold your hand when crossing the road anymore, they are little more independent every day, they begin to tackle their own problems, you find out they had a cold and you didn’t even know about it, but they got healthy again without you fussing around them with hot honey and lemon drinks, hot water bottles & without those ‘mummy’ cuddles.   You turn around and they’ve grown up.  You look at the house you’ve shared with your children, the noise isn’t there, the sibling arguments aren’t sounding around the house, the laughter has gone, the fridge isn’t constantly open, their bedrooms are quiet and empty, there aren’t their friends sat watching TV when you walk through the door.  I miss them so much, I miss the noise, I miss their arguing, I miss their laughter, I miss their friends.  The house still has Jon and myself, but it seems somehow empty, but I’m not sad about this…  on the contrary, it’s good isn’t it?  They were always going to grow up, that’s what we’re here for as parents, to nurture that time between birth and the day they leave and of course, to always be there for them as and when needed in the future. If your son’s or daughters have left home happy and on their way to independence then you should be proud, I am!  Doesn’t it mean you’ve done a great job?

What happens to the house though when they leave it behind?  Ours feels totally different to me.  I feel the house to be empty and too quiet for us and the bottom line is… I miss living with my boys.  So myself and Jon made the decision early this year to say goodbye to what’s been a lovely happy home and do something completely different.  Move on ourselves.  Out of that comfort zone.  Do something exciting.  Sell up and move onto our canal boat – Why not? Let’s get this next stage of our lives started.  If you keep waiting for that perfect time, then time just may pass you by, right?   There’s a lot to see and do out there, a lot of fun to have.  I have previously posted about moving onto our boat when these thoughts first came into our heads and you can read about that Here.

We actually bought the boat around 10 years ago as an empty shell and since then, with a lot of hard work by Jon, it’s turned into a cosy home.

Of course all this means it’s such a busy time at the moment, packing boxes are everywhere, we’re sprucing up the boat ready for us moving aboard, sorting out storage for our belongings from the house which we can’t take to the boat and all those things which you have to do when leaving a property such as, estate agencies, solicitors, change of address’s, calling utility companies etc etc.  My head and house are full of ‘To Do’ lists.

One more month and we should be stepping on board our next home and yes it does have a spare room just in case my boys fancy visiting 🙂

I asked myself all those months ago when deciding to do this, “what if the boys need to come home?” I answered to myself, “Our home is their home wherever we are, whenever needed, they know that”.  The fact is, with mobile phones and social media, we’re in touch all the time and that will never change.  They are happy living their own lives now and I feel comfortable about that.

Are you in the same boat? (forgive the pun), Your reasons may not be that your children have ‘flown the nest’, you may have different reasons.  Is this ‘your’ time to do something different?  I’d love to hear your stories 🙂