Following the Heart

One can over do thinking things through.

Ponder the possibility of this.  Consider the possibility of that.  Add up the costs and calculate the infinite ways those costs might change.  Spend a lot of time reflecting.

There will always be risks to anything.  And among the many, many things that Molly taught me was that all of the thoughtful calculations in the world can miss - probably WILL miss - the real problems that are going to emerge.  Thoughtful calculation is going to lead you to the same place every time: the anticipated action might go well, and then again, it might not.  

Frances and I are gut instinct people.  We will think things through to some extent, but our hearts are going to overrule our head almost every time.  So when we moved to this 55 Plus Community, we could have spent a weekend here to see if we really liked "the lifestyle".  But that seemed like setting ourselves up for a weekend of intense marketing.  Instead, we had lunch at the bar a few times so that we could talk with the bartenders and the folks at the bar; seemed more "real" to us.  And we felt at home pretty quickly.

We did not spend a lot of time in the desert in the summer before we moved - we just figured that it would be hot.  We had heard that it was a "dry" heat - much different than the East Coast humidity that we were used to. Basically, we chalked up heat waves to a universal truth that there is no perfect place on the planet and we would rather pay our dues with heat than with snow.  So far so good on that.

Of course, we did some rough financial calculations before the move; add the cost of the mortgage; throw some money in for Homeowners Association. pay off the cars before we moved.  After that, our sense was that the budget would all more or less even out.  A tad bit naive.  

Our first bumps in the road came with  utility bills. Mercy me.  We did not spend a lot of time researching those.  Correct that.  We spent no time researching them.  Which became obvious when I opened the first electric bill.  A little research might have been helpful in this area - we weren't even here for half the month and the bill was more than I had ever paid for any utility.  And then there was the cost of the service call to fix the air conditioner that went out somewhere between three teen aged boys in and out while we were moving in and the contractor leaving every door in the house open.  

We had signed a contract on the house before we became aware that we would need to pay for things like landscaping ($145 a month) and extermination ($50 a month) that are not regular expenses anywhere else we have lived and had not even occurred to us.  We also didn't factor in additional insurance costs - including insurance on the golf cart which is a new vehicle that we are going to have to take care of.   

I am not giving up having a cleaning lady.  So there is that, too.

The overwhelming gut instinct was to move.  Have there been surprises along the way?  Yes.  Might it have been prudent to do a bit more research?  Perhaps.   Do I have any regrets?  No.