But wait! What about the house we still owned in western Mass? The realtor told us the average time on the market for houses in our area was 210 days. Gasp! We’d just decided we could live in the city and I wanted that apartment – reality can be such a downer! My husband, skeptical about this urban idea, was probably more relieved than he dared admit to me. I think he was still hoping we’d buy the townhouse in the mountains of Vermont and I’d commute to Boston and the Pioneer Valley as needed. I don’t let go of exciting ideas that easily! Time for Plan B. I would rent the flat for my business. I could be there several days a week. It would make it so much easier to work with my Boston clients. Our home and my primary place of business would remain in western Mass. Once our house sold, if the Urban Experiment still felt like a good idea, we would have the option of moving to Boston. If not, we could reconsider that townhouse in Vermont, in Northampton, or someplace else. Either way, we would have options. And we wouldn’t be saddled with a single family dwelling that takes 210 days to sell. I signed the lease. And the clock was ticking. If most of those 12 months passed with me working part time in Boston without living there with my husband, I was pretty sure the opportunity was not going to offer itself up again. Thus, I was in a hurry. I saw to it our house was on the market within two weeks. Read Part 3 of The Urban Experiment!
When my husband retired, we gained a new kind of freedom. For the first time since age 5, we were not controlled by a school year calendar and forced to take vacations when everyone else did. And, for the first time ever, we were not tethered to a geographic location. Sure, I had a lot of clients in western Mass, but I also had a lot of clients elsewhere, some of which I worked with via Skype or phone. My home office could be moved in a flash. On top of that, neither daughter lived near by. As much as we loved beautiful, rugged Westhampton filled with hiking trails and wildlife, we were getting ready to consider other possibilities. We began traveling more. Leisure travel together and business trips began to merge. Meanwhile, our beautiful home in the hills of western Mass was sitting empty increasingly often. Empty and susceptible to power failures. In our area, no power meant no heat and no heat meant a risk of frozen pipes during the cold winters. It was starting to feel like a liability. And also a lot of work. The question was, where to go next?