Transitions begin again

I started keeping a journal back in January of this year to track our journey towards buying a new home and settling in on the Isle of Wight. Since we had already sold our house in Plymouth (UK), we believed that living locally we could be the first to see new-to-market houses and be ready with our all-cash offer, so the buying process was bound to progress quickly. 

Moving from our cosy 4 bedroom house with a wonderful garden and beloved neighbours and friends to a small 2-bedroom bungalow shared with Pete’s mum was much more of a shock than I anticipated. The numbness from 2 years of Covid isolation, plus monthly commutes to the Island for caretaking responsibilities seemed to have cut us off from so much socialising locally that we both assumed we wouldn’t miss much, right? 

For some reason the sudden loneliness took me completely off-guard and I spent some quality time wallowing in spectacular self-pity. For most of January we functioned as best we could, trying to get organised in a smaller space: setting up our micro workspaces, learning where to go for our daily walks, and stretching the available meagre bandwidth to serve two more people who work online, and not just one elderly woman who watches live TV only (no streaming!). 

Just as quickly as I expected our house purchase to go, I stumbled into that dark sad place I had forgotten existed. It’s that place where one feels untethered from all that is familiar and comforting. That feeling of being all alone hadn’t happened for awhile and I had completely forgotten about it. My trip to the dark cellar of no optimism had overtaken me the last two times I had moved to a new country. Even though this latest move was within England, and we have visited the Isle of Wight many times and loved it, it was still a new part of the country to live and work. I arrived knowing Pete’s mum, and one of his friends on the Island, and that was it. 

Our highest priority has been to find a house to buy, and the beginning of January when we arrived was not really the best time to find property. I was dipping in and out of the aforementioned loneliness and maybe a tiny bit of depression about our unknown future. We were planning several trips from the UK for weddings this year, and those logistics on top of housing uncertainty were tipping me beyond the ‘just try and hold it together’ point. If I were British I suppose I would know how to keep calm and carry on, but I’m not and I didn’t. I wallowed quite a bit.

In general I don’t mind being alone at all; in fact I am quite comfortable being alone, and enjoy it. But this was a different kind of alone; the kind where there is no one to imagine going to visit, or call to go for a walk, or even happen to meet up at the cafe or shops. There is literally NO ONE to chat to in range. And the local village is really just a few shops and not the kind where you can stop in and browse, unless you fancy a charity shop for baubles or Tesco express for average cheese or cheap wine. (Having said that we did get chummy with the owner of the local wine shop. We have our priorities.)

At some point, the lightbulb moment blinked on when I remembered I had been through this before, and that it was part of the moving transition that does change over time and eventually gets better. Living on a lush island with abundant beaches and walks, tropical plants and gardens everywhere is a sure way to my heart, so slowly I calmed my panicked soul and established some calming routines to keep me above the dark places.

Now here it is veering towards late-July and we are STILL sharing a two-bedroom bungalow with Pete’s lovely 87-year old mother. Most of our belongings are locked up in storage, with only our clothes, working tools, and a few of our own kitchen implements with us. On the one hand living this simply is easy. We have lovely walks nearby, and up until recently we didn’t go out too much, (except to look at way too many houses) to help keep Pete’s mum safe from Covid. I’ve also learned a lot from listening to stories about the old ways. 

Against all my cynical thinking, I know there WILL be an end to waiting for our house (yes, we did eventually agree to purchase a house), and until we can move we are trying to stay zen about the whole process. Ha ha ha. Oh yes, and we finally managed to get Covid, so we are isolating within the bungalow, and wearing masks when we walk around the house. 😷