What I'm leaving behind

I quit my last paying job just about nine years ago. Here's what I've done since then:

• Became a certified mediator, mediating about 100 cases at my county's dispute resolution center and in small claims court
• Joined a very liberal church community
• Became a snowbird, spending two months in Tucson in 2013 and increasing the amount of time to seven months in 2019
• Volunteered five times at a refugee camp in Greece
• Volunteered at an asylum-seekers' shelter in Arizona
• Set up and maintained the accounting for a nonprofit with a 500,000 annual budget
• Took 72 trips of three days or longer
• Wrote 630 blog posts

I've always liked to be busy and to keep my mind engaged. That is still the case. But this summer I've shifted:

• I've only done one small claims court mediation, and no family disputes, since I got home from Tucson, where we spend our snowbird months. I've realized the activities no longer "call" me. I use my mediation skills nearly every day in my ordinary life, and I love that. But I've moved on. I didn't actually acknowledge it until last month - and last week I notified the dispute resolution center and the small claims team that I wanted to be taken off their lists.

• I haven't attended a church service all summer. I have had multiple conversations with church people - the pastor and people involved in social justice programs - but that was about the possibility of facilitating opportunities for congregation members to volunteer with one of the immigration programs in Tucson. Not sure why I'm not going on Sundays.

• Except for my trip to London last month, I'm not doing much walking.  And I'm not swimming. I don't like that about myself, but there it is. Once we get to Tucson it will become part of my routine again.

Here's what I AM doing at home:

• Having good conversations with my closest friends.
• Catching up on reading the magazines I subscribe to.
• Checking books out of the library.
• Going through drawers and closets and photo albums.
• Finishing up the accounting work for the nonprofit.
• Clearing out emails.
• Being a helpmate, as needed, to my husband recovering from thumb surgery with his arm in a cast. That means a lot of errand running, which he usually does.
• Hiring people to maintain the lawn and clean the carpets.
• Getting the house ready for Art's son Jason and his family to be living here for a year.

Early next month we leave for Tucson, and we will be there for a year. It wasn't in our plan until Father's Day, when it came up in a phone conversation between Jason and Art. It just happened into our lives. That's actually how things usually work out for me, anyway. We've been considering a permanent move for several years - me more seriously than Art - but this year is a perfect time to see if it's what we want, without having to sell the house first.

Here's what I'm doing to prepare for Arizona:

• Researching e-bikes. We've found what we want, and we'll buy it on September 8 in Phoenix.
• Researching OLLI (Osher) classes in Green Valley, half an hour from our Arizona place. We'll arrive early enough and stay long enough to take advantage of all the course offerings.
• Thinking about carpet colors.
• Deciding which three decorative pieces I want to have in Arizona.
• Getting my car ready to drive down. We'll need both cars if we're there for a year.

The changes - what I'm leaving behind - are not sacrifices. They're more like evolutions. I'm not ripping myself away from home. I'm sliding into something new.