so it turns out we’re ‘poor’ enough to only qualify for a double-wide mobile/manufactured home for VA/any financing, hopefully with enough land to make it not seem like a trailer park.  we may have found a nice place with a mountain view, being sold by a sweet old disabled gentleman from Boston (who does a mean Irish accent) who isn’t even sure where he’s going to next (his kids being not of much help), but as long as it’s near the ocean, he’ll be happy.  i can relate.  (he promised to jump in the ocean for me,   closest i’ll ever get.)  i almost want to adopt him along with his home.

i have mixed feelings.  i never imagined myself in a mobile home anywhere, but then again, my prospects otherwise were probably limited to living under an overpass somewhere.  I have stated previously ad nauseum that i will never do to my kid(s) what my parents did to me, or be consigned to a facility, just shoot me first.  so mobile home vs. underpass or loony bin, no contest.  just to get out of NJ/OH is a big thumbs up.  plus a mountain view, and not far from my son and family, if they can put up with me that close, priceless.  just the thought of finally finding a home with conducive surroundings and folks is more than i could have hoped for otherwise.

whatever place we settle on, it will probably be the place we live out our days and die in.  we don’t have money to build or flip houses, or time to sell and move again.  if we’re lucky, we’ll have some small equity or assets to leave to my son.  but it will be a place to call our own without strings or conditions or major expenses.  and i get to finally spend way overdue time with my young family, before it’s too late.  and a piece of land for a garden.  so i’m very fortunate to have such an opportunity at all.

life sure can be strange and convoluted.  you never see some things coming.  if you’re smart or lucky, you jump at a chance to get off someone else’s treadmill and start over with a clean slate, before it’s too late, because life’s too short to waste hoping for that break which never comes.  still…some mixed emotions there.  reality can be a buzzkill, so you learn  to compromise and be resilient in order to survive and evolve.  and you find out what’s really important.

here are reasons to go on.