Moving ... Again

No one likes to move. At least, I've never met anyone who liked to move. It's stressful and confusing and just hard work. Uprooting a life and all the stuff that goes with it is a major undertaking even if there's not much stuff and the move isn't far away. 

      My first major move was when my family went from Garden Grove, California (near LA) to Baker, Oregon, a small ranch community in Eastern Oregon not far from the Idaho border. I was 11 years old and it was 1964. The Beatles were hot on the music scene; that was a pivotal year for music, the year that Elvis was challenged for the throne and was toppled shortly thereafter. I had a small transistor radio that I had gotten for my birthday the year before and it was never turned off. It would take a whole book to describe in detail how that move affected me, the culture shock that I experienced upon arriving in the wilderness with only one radio station that at that time played nothing current, because there was nothing current about Baker. I never did adjust to life in that town but I did come to love some aspects of it and it did help me to be more flexible in my character then I might have been otherwise. 

      But that wasn't my first move. From age 5, when I moved to LA area to live with my mother and her new husband, to age 11 when we packed up and left the state, we had moved four times. Before age 5, there's no way for me to guess at how many places we lived, how many times we moved or even how many people, mostly relatives, that my brother and I lived with. After moving to Baker, the family moved five times, each one an upgrade, before I left home for good at age 18. 

      Not long ago I created a comprehensive list of the addresses I've had in my life and the count is well over 50 from age 5 to age 54, when I moved into the house where I've lived for the past 9+ years. I'm glad I've gotten to experience a feeling of stability here in Boise, Idaho; this is by far the longest I've lived in one house or even one town in my entire life. And as much as I've loved it and benefited from the extended stay, I feel it's time to move again. This time to another country, which will be a first for me. Mexico is looming as a place of interest and a recent vacation has convinced me that there is a new life to be had in the area just south of Guadalajara on the shores of Lake Chapala. 

     The effort and focus it's going to take to get there is rather daunting and I will only be taking what I can fit into my old car, a 1994 Pontiac Grand Am that I've had since she was brand new. At this stage of her life, it turns out that she's the perfect vehicle to take to Mexico, older but in good repair, nothing new or fancy to worry about. Her name is Sybil and she and my old cat, Rocky, will be perfect companions for this, what could very well be my last, adventure. 

I've created this blog as a place to post photos and stories as I sort, pack and purge my stuff in preparation for this huge move. My estimated time of departure so far is June 1st but it's just a date to shoot for, I have no solid plans or commitments at this time and anything could happen. This will be the ride of a lifetime, a rare move for a single woman over 60 with no friends or relatives in the area I'm heading for. As we go along I'll tell you about some of my other risky moves, all stories worth telling and some of them quite hair-raising! Since the stories I have to tell are contained in so many of the items I've kept throughout the years, that's how I'll let them unfold ... as the sweet stories of my stuff and also the wild and crazy moves I've made in my life. It's been a nice, interesting, relatively long life so far but armed with terrific health, plenty of income and a great attitude, I expect lots of opportunities for personal growth in my future and I can't wait to get started.