Home

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of home lately.

I never thought I'd be old enough to think about retiring, but here I am, almost there. I can't stop thinking about it: How much money will we need? How much longer do we have to work to be able to afford doing what we like to do? How much longer will our bodies allow us to do it? If we decide to sell everything and live on the road full time, where will we go eventually, when we can no longer travel (or want to)?

What will home look like in the future?

This whole concept came to me in a strange swirl of fond memories and bittersweet moments a few weeks ago as I tore apart my childhood home.

Before you start thinking I drove a wrecking ball through a suburban "mid-century modern" tract home like some sick reenactment of a HGTV reality series, it actually was more in line with taking a screwdriver to my old dollhouse. That's right, I still had the dollhouse from when I turned 5.

The walls came down, but not without a fight.

As I took each screw out of the pressboard walls, I couldn't help but think about how my Dad put it together, with those very same screws, carefully lining up the bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom and living room, topping it off with a metal chimney on a shingle-painted roof.

Dad (who's now been gone fourteen years) could build anything, and when he did, he did it to last. That pressboard and paper house, with it's metal chimney, stood for almost 50 years in one room or another everywhere I have lived. It was shoved in the attic for a few years while I was in college, but the minute I had my own place Mom delivered my old toys, the decision to keep or discard off her conscience. I got rid of a lot of old things, but could never quite give up the dollhouse.

Hemingway over the mantel? I never noticed until today.

It's kind of funny because I never played with it much, except to arrange and rearrange the furniture. I never liked dolls, but I was fascinated with putting things together and putting things in their place. That would be laughable now, especially to Mark, if you saw the clutter hanging out in our house, but at the time it seemed very important that everything was in the right spot. I'd get that house all set up, look at it for a minute, then take all the furniture out, disassembling the molded bed from the plastic headboard, the dining room table from it's legs, and tuck it all away in the storage box. I'd even wipe the rooms clean if there was a little dust.

Maybe my obsession with order in the make believe world has finally spilled into my real one. I love the house Mark and I live in now but I'm starting to be driven nuts by the extra stuff laying around. The older I get the more I appreciate empty space, and that is what eventually drove me to lay waste to my old dollhouse. Because seriously, am I going to dust furniture in a miniature house when I barely have time to dust the real stuff?

Our plan, once we are financially ready, is to take off on a year's tour of the US, working out any kinks with our vehicle while we make our way around the states. After that, drive down to South America. From there we'll go as far as we can make it/afford it. In order to do that we'll have to rent the house out or sell it; either way stuff will have to go.

Some friends of ours are actually doing this right now. They quit their jobs, put their house up for sale, put a few necessary things in storage and are currently outfitting their vehicle for a round the world trip. I'm a little nervous for them, but mostly envious.

For now, we have to be satisfied with our four weeks of vacation and any mini weekend trips we can squeeze in around the edges. Every trip we take makes it that much harder to come home. The more time we spend in the camper makes it feel more like home than home is.

I'm glad Dad built that dollhouse for me. It was well built and held up nicely for almost 50 years. I figure if I can keep my joints that solid and my screws in place as well as that little dollhouse, our retirement will last for a good long stretch. I'm ready to make a home of the road.