Now it’s serious

The last few days have sealed the deal. We don’t have a choice anymore. Now we have to leave.

On Tuesday morning we put our bed up for sale for a price three times higher than I thought it would eventually sell for. Five hours later I was helping a guy load it in his truck. (I’m not complaining about the selling price, don’t get me wrong.) Also on Tuesday I lowered the price on our Maxima, thinking it would still take a few days to sell. A young guy came by that afternoon to test drive it. He didn’t seem so impressed at the time, but then yesterday morning he called to ask if I could meet him at the bank to complete the purchase.

So just like that, we’ve gone from sleeping on a $3000 king-size gel mattress  

to sleeping on a $20 Coleman air mattress (thanks Dad for letting us borrow it), 

and from driving a six-cylinder, all leather, decked out Maxima

to a hamster-powered Hyundai that looks they forgot to give it a trunk.  (It’s been a long time since I’ve had to manually roll down the windows and go around to each door to unlock it. : ) 

 
There’s a bag of mixed emotions selling everything you own. I can’t even explain how excited I am to fly to Costa Rica on Tuesday and start a new chapter of our lives. But watching our car drive away, the best car either of us have ever owned, attached to so many good memories, now in the hands of a college kid definitely gave a little emotional tug of something. I don’t know what the word is. Missing? That might be it. Missing the car, knowing I’ll never see it again. Missing the bed, the bed we’ve had for the majority of our marriage, now in the hands of a smoker who didn’t even mind putting his sneakers on the bed when he way lying on it. And they were the gross, worn everywhere for five years kind of sneakers. (I didn’t want to sleep on it again after that. I was glad when we said he’d take it.)

So maybe there’s a bit of angst in there as well, wondering if those things are going to be as well taken care of and appreciated in the hands of their new owners. Somebody else is going to be drooling on our bed. Somebody else is going to make out in our car, and not doing it nearly as well. Then to complete it, the best car they had at the rental shop was a feather weight Hyundai that goes from 0 to 60 in 12 days.  But in the end, the excitement wins out. What do I care about the car and the bed? We’ve got the cash from selling them and we’re moving to a tropical paradise in five days! Advantage, Kelli and Brad.