Yesterday we were sitting on our deck in plus 25C sunshine and today it is snowing!
Crazy and unpredictable weather is the topic on every mind today and you can’t run across a person who doesn’t have a comment on the weather in Alberta. We are creatures of habit yet change is all around us and it makes me wonder how various people cope with the uncertainty of life.
It also seems that when you finally arrive at a place of peace it isn’t long before you are searching around for new challenges and (seemingly) new stress!
The trend of moving on up may be on the decline as mortgages get more and more difficult to obtain.
Just a short generation ago, people were likely to stay in their homes 20 years or more and those were the people who made money on real estate.
They lived in and maintained their properties and did not undergo the cost of moving and starting over again and as a result, they benefited from increases in the housing market. Our generation moves far more frequently than our forefathers; statistics show that the average 30-year-old will move every four years while Gen X people stretch that average out to every 10 years.
The trend of Millennials is to not become strapped down to large homes and cumbersome mortgages.
They are willing to travel like snails with their homes and worldly possessions on their backs in a grand effort to see and do more. They are not stationary and will forgo the creature comforts people of my age hold dear to live large and post it on Instagram.
While we are feathering our nests, our children are out bungee jumping from branch to branch in a search for more meaning and more fulfillment.
Did we have it wrong?
Did we lose our perspective along the way in our vain attempt to have bigger and better? The goal used to be to buy and sell and make a profit to roll into the next (larger) home which can now seem unnecessary and over indulgent.
My love and I currently live in a five bedroom place sitting on over 100 acres which seems like luxury yet we both seem to look at and say ‘now what’.
The kids are gone and it’s just us and the cats most days and we are wondering what to do with all this space and how we can make meaningful decisions for our home going forward.
Somehow the urge to renovate another kitchen isn’t as exciting as it used to be and moving seems even less enticing! Are we able to sit quietly and not change or will we be like the weather in Alberta and shift with the winds as we enter a new phase in our lives.
As I look up the road to a homestead that has been lived in for more than 50 years I wonder if they have the right idea. The lives which seem long standing and steadfast have a nostalgic appeal as I am entering into my half century age and I think the life of settled peace may be better than the constant uprooting and ripping and tearing (drywall) that my life has consisted of in the past.
Rage on, Mother Nature, I will continue to sit on my porch and watch the sunsets.
Kim Wyse is a Central Alberta freelance designer. Find her on facebook at ‘Ask a Designer/Ask a Realtor’.
