Unemployed & Houseless
No turning back now.
On Friday I said goodbye to my job of the last 12 years and walked out of the Wake County Justice Center in Raleigh with a box of what possessions I still had there. There were a lot of tears and a pretty big sense of “OMG what am I doing”, but I still felt very at peace and confident in our plans.
This is it! Everything that we sent to Hawaii from our almost-3000-square-foot house.
We spent the weekend packing our Pods container with everything that is making the 4,700 mile journey to Ewa Beach, Hawaii (the town where we’re renting for the first 6 weeks).
In what has to be the easiest house sale ever, we closed on the house Monday and handed over the keys to a lovely family who, by all accounts, loves the house as much as we hoped they would.
The message we left on our kegerator for the new owners.
On Sunday night, Chris and I went to dinner to celebrate our last night in Durham and at one point I said, “I don’t know that I’m going to be emotional when we leave the house for the last time tomorrow.” Cut to us driving down the road, me in the passenger seat sobbing, and Chris saying, “I thought you weren’t going to be emotional?”
“I said that I didn’t KNOW if I would or not", I choked out around tears before breaking into a fresh round of sobs.
Chris and I on our last night in Durham.
We got to Winston-Salem by around 2:30pm and collapsed on the couch at my parent’s house. It has been quite the ride over the last 4 and a half months, and we were exhausted. I had these dreams of sleeping in and being able to truly relax for the first time in months. However as my eyes sprang open at 6am Tuesday morning, I realized that wasn’t going to happen. I laid in bed, feeling my anxiety creeping up, realizing that I was now unemployed AND didn’t have a house. Gulp.
The last picture we took at our house, just before we pulled away for the last time.
As we’ve said goodbye to people over the last 2 weeks (something else Covid robbed from us - being able to really say goodbye to everyone), I’ve gotten the impression from things people have said that we’ve made this process look easy. On the contrary, this has been one of the toughest journeys of our lives so far. I’ve often had the thought that no wonder more people don’t do this - it’s REALLY FREAKING HARD. Sticking with the status quo and trying to make your current life work is so much easier. For me, the feeling has been that I am in quick sand and my old life is doing everything it can to keep me in place, while I fight for every inch of movement I can grab.
Toasting with Mom and Dad on Monday night.
Don’t get me wrong, we both feel that it will be 100% worth it, but I started this blog to share the journey and so far, the hard parts have been the majority. If we weren’t so damn sure that we’re making the right decision, it would likely be impossible to do all this.
But now, the details are (mostly) done. Work is done. Packing is (mostly) done*. And instead of basking in the glow of what is to come and what we’ve accomplished, instead I’m just feeling all the feels.
So there is lots more to come on what this journey has been like so far, but for tonight, know that we are tired but unswayed.
Hawaii, we will see you soon.
The back seat of our car, where the dogs will eventually have to go. Apparently we have some more purging and repacking to do.
* I cannot confirm or deny that at some point on Sunday/Monday we might have just said “F*&% this” and started throwing things into the car, and arrived in Winston-Salem with our car packed absolutely to the brim, with zero room for the dogs (they spent the weekend with my parents' so we could pack without them there). We might still have some purging and repacking to do.