In April of 2025 Chuck and I made the decision, in consultation with our daughter and her family who live near us in the Pacific Northwest area, to accept a life change for ourselves. Over several months of consultation and contemplation what developed was a plan to create an inter-generational family home. A family home where we could live together in support of each other at this time in our lives and in these unique circumstances we all find ourselves. We have children in Canada and the Mid West who support us. We talked to friends and extended family and felt supported in the ideas we were considering. The first goal would be for us to be together as a family through our elder years. Our daughter and her husband had suggested this idea when we realized we needed to reconsider our living situation due to our age. We moved here five years ago but situations have occurred that now need our attention. The second goal is to be together to support each other at a time when financial uncertainty and rapid change is occurring in the world. As the decision to form a household together took form, it included doing research regarding where to live as a family together. It required putting our condo on the market in order to purchase a home that would allow us to “age in place” and allow room for two families to comfortably live together. A great deal of thought has gone into this decision as one might imagine.
Going back a bit, in the beginning of January of 2025, we had a dear friend visit us for a few days. He and his wife had been planning and organizing their lives to move to Portugal for several years and she was already there. He had come up from Oregon to say good bye and invite us to move to Portugal with them. I write about this on my blog February 3, 2025 titled, "February 3, 2025. Saying Goodbye to Dear Friends Moving to Portugal and Other Stories!". This loving invitation from our friends of over 25 years is what finally led us to decide to accept our daughter's offer of an inter-generational home. Chuck and I did four months of research about the ins and outs of moving permanently moving to Portugal, from January to April. We were very excited about the idea and had bought tickets and made plans to travel to Portugal and be with our friends for several weeks to do our own research there.
That plan failed unfortunately, as the week before the flight I fell and injured myself and was not able to travel. Our daughter and her husband, who live in Canada, made plans to be with us in Portugal. This was a big disappointment all the way around us. An interesting side note: On the day we were to transfer planes in France to head to Lisbon, there was an "unprecedented incident, which resulted in a total loss of the power supply of continental Spain and Portugal, marking the most significant power system event in Europe in over two decades, with major impacts on Spanish and Portuguese citizens and society". It also effected France at the same time and we would have been at the airport there in the mad chaos. We did miss all that excitement. Our daughter was one day ahead of us having landed in Lisbon ahead of our planned arrival. They were not effected by the blackout in ways we would have been had we taken that flight. My daughter did text me and asked me to contact their three adult children living in Canada to let them know their parents had landed safely in Lisbon and were in their Airbnb along the coast as planned, with the amenities needed to get through the blackout. They had a wonderful time in Portugal without us and recently told us they had booked another flight to visit again this coming May!
Here is an article about the blackout: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackout
In early December of 2024 we planned to visit Sante Fe to see old friends of Chuck's who had been inviting us for quite some time. We took that journey in early March of 2025 for a week. We considered the possibilities of moving there as well. I wrote about this trip on my blog on July 20th of last year, posting beautiful pictures of our visit. I titled it. "Renewed Friendships and Ancient Desert Lands".
As elders the first four months of 2025 were quite exhausting for us as we considered these life changing options. While we each feel quite blessed and protected in our life at this time, these considerations do not come without trepidation. As we move forward we are also fairly clear minded in our awareness of the difficulties and turmoil within the world we are now living in at this time, which is why we feel compelled to support each other as a family unit together.
We moved into our condo during Covid December 2020 because we needed a home without multiply floors and stairs. Due to health reasons on my part and physical restraints on Chuck's part we were no longer able to keep up with the constant maintenance of our beautiful and very large home, which also contained our clinical practice. With the Covid pandemic we could not see clients in person so ultimately all that led us to make to decision to retire. We were both 72 at the time. A traumatic decision and chaotic adventure in itself. After moving we continued part time to work with clients on line for the next two years. We fully retired in September of 2022. The condominium is in a beautiful area and we have been very happy living here the past five years. Blessed with a supportive community of neighbors! These decisions do not come to us lightly in any way!
There were financial and physical and situational factors before us that we needed to address. Chuck and I discovered that neither of us were willing to move out of country and away from the opportunities afforded us here to be close to our family. So...Portugal was no longer being considered. However, we still see a visit there to join our frinds for an extended vacation in the back of our minds. Other factors were also included around health insurance needs, quality of life and close family friendships that would be disrupted. We spent several months going over the details and pro and cons together. We made several travel journeys as a couple, and traveled as a family, to visit various locations in Eastern Washington. For quality of life and financial considerations related to living expenses, after months of research we chose to move to Eastern Washington.
I’m writing this very personal journal as we go through this process because I am hoping our experiences may be of support to others.
We put our place on the market in late April of 2025. From that time to now we have basically been living in limbo with organizing and preparing our home for moving...again. We sometimes only have a few hours notice to get ready for perspective buyers coming to investigate. This also includes preparing our home for what is called a three hour "open house" twice monthly. We have had some buyer interest and traction but not as much as we hoped and certainly not in the time frame we had hoped. Our vision has been tested. We are continuing with the sale this year with an affirmed vision for the plan we began to set in motion almost 10 months ago now. With our time spent keeping our place in order for people to come through, our current situation is defined as continued internal and external chaos, for the most part. The self care required is critical. Both Chuck and I have had creative projects we have been working on individually to take care of ourselves over the past months. We are quite good at that, it does not at all mean it’s easy however! We continue as a family with the medicine of hope and love and patience for the process. Not necessarily knowing the end result, we have discovered how much we love each other and are able to care for each other and maintain thatbhope through our love as a family.
Today is February 10, 2026. I have used much of my time over these past many years to write on my blog, which is a self care action that is always self healing and a magical learning experience. I have been writing a narrative on my blog about my life titled, "First Daughter Still Standing". I have spent the last few years, since the beginning of my full retirement in 2022, writing and working on how to say good bye to my dear parents and honor them both respectfully in the process. In late November, as the winter was just beginning, I chose to let go of the chaotic process of selling our place and let it be what ever it was going to be. During these winter days as I put all of that on pause, I have given myself permission to rest a great deal. Allowing myself space for reflection through long walks and quiet times of self care. With that it's now time to take a break from writing on my personal narrative and how to say good bye to my parents, to actually saying good bye. I release my constant and heavy questions of how I got to the 77th year of my life and let go of the travel time machine, filled with all of the ways that I became who I am. I release the blocks I have been working on that were filled with pain and sorrow. I am creating space for new intentions in my life.
It's time for me to create space for the day in early spring when the Frogs Begin to Sing!
I want to continue my life's walk into the tender acceptance of creating intentions for future plans that bring me joy. In my restful state over the last couple of months I have taken the time to listen to what is happening in the world around me related to the painful collective chaos that we are all feeling. I believe in the transformational process occurring now of which our Indigenous ancestors and relations have prophesized at this time as "The Great Turning". Right here right now, I acknowledge that it is up to me to receive the blessings and honor the gifts of joy that come from understanding that we are in a collective transformational time, as the healers are now sharing. I want to acknowledge "The Great Turning" and fill my days with noticing the joy right in front of me...today. I'm very good at understanding awakening actually. The whole of my life has prepared me for this moment!! It's who I am and how I've lived my life all along. Listening to the sound of the awakening of life's gifts IS how I have survived the trials on this trail called my life.
It is time to awaken to yet another milestone trail for myself, the trail of Elderhood. Let go of the weight of my past. It's all there in my stories, here on my blog which I started in 2010. I will continue to revise and edit my work as I choose over time. Now I need to carry myself forward into the years of life I have left on this beautiful planet that is our home. Come what may. My blog has been a blessed home for me to document my life's story. That will continue. I have been quite tired, resting a great deal these weeks of winter. Quieting myself. Practicing my skills necessary for my well being in all aspects of my life. Feeling frustrated at times and moving through the process of my experiences is not ending, I know that much. I'm curious! I'm listening! I'm learning! It's time for me to slowly, mindfully awaken, and focus on what I want to do with the rest of the time that I'm blessed to be around on our beautiful Mother Earth. Planting seeds of hope and restoration and renewal with curiosity and mindful intentions.
Finally....God bless the nineteen Venerable Monks for what they have given the world these past winter months in there 2,330 mile Walk for Peace. I followed them. I felt their presence and their pain with hundreds of thousands of others in the world! I listened and I received their message of peace in my heart! They are home now and I’m filled with gratitude as I complete this portion of my writing, February 14, 2026.
Today is going to be my Peaceful Day. May you be happy. May you be well. May you be at peace.
Let the Year of The Fire Horse Begin! Let the Equinox bring in the Light of Spring!
Photo of Glorious Fireweed Seeds, Summer of 2020.
