a change of scenery

The grass is greener on the other side. Isn't that what they say? Well, in our case the grass will be replaced with xeriscaping and desert-dwelling plants. 


Sometime soon, probably in the next six months, hopefully sooner, we'll be moving to Arizona. Yes. Arizona.


Back in November while I was dealing with the problem of test driving new anti-psychotic medications, Jason floated the idea of moving so we could be closer to my family. My initial knee-jerk reaction was to say no, but the thought refused to vanish and we began discussing the idea. Why wouldn't we want to be closer to a massive emotional support system? By the beginning of December we had let our families know - as soon as Jason could find a job and we could sell the house, we'd be moving almost 700 miles to the Phoenix area. 


Since that decision we've done nothing but try to be ready when the stars finally aligned. After cleaning the house for the Christmas holiday we took pictures of everything in pristine condition so we'd have them available when we put the house on the market. Jason has been spending most of his time either researching AZ police departments or working out so as to be ready for any physical tests that might be required. And me, well, I've slowly been acquiring every home decor magazine in a tri-state area. We've done all the math, researched what size house we can afford, where we want to live, which police departments are the ones to shoot for and what we could expect to get for our current house. And still we waited. 


And waited. 


Then finally, at the beginning of the year, job positions began opening. But even then the hiring process can take months. There are extensive background checks and multiple interviews that have to take place before the job is even offered. The waiting was starting to get frustrating. We were ready to make that next step but were feeling stalled at every turn. 


So we decided to take a leap of extreme faith and put our house on the market. It's been available for 5 days now. 


Fear of ridicule is a powerful motivator in my book and about 10 seconds after the FOR SALE sign hit our lawn I realized how not in order our house was. Not dirty. Never dirty. But cluttered and a little soap-scummy.We spent the next three days cleaning and de-cluttering. I had no idea how much stuff one 2 year old and five years of marriage can create. So we boxed and packed and moved and reorganized and hauled and stored just so we could scrub and clean and sweep and vacuum places that haven't seen the light of day since we moved in. But after 16 plus hours of work I feel less fear and anxiety in showing our home to strangers. There's still the alarm that we might have a buyer before we're ready to move out of state. We have a few options on that front but have decided to cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I'm intensely happy to finally be moving forward even if it requires a little more work to keep the anxiety at bay.