Taking the First Step Toward a New Life

In less than a week, I will close on my new home in Rio Rancho, NM. I found this house during an Internet search, fell in love with it, and after some initial hesitation, flew to Albuquerque to take a look at it. I was picked up at the airport by a Realtor, looked at fewer than six houses, and flew home that same evening.

A few days later, I made an offer on the house. It has everything I was looking for. It's only 12 years old, is a pueblo style, 1 story, with a very southwestern interior. It has lots of windows, is on a 1/2-acre lot and has a view of the mountains from the living room. The house is nearly twice the size of my little house in California. The front is enclosed by an adobe wall to make a beautiful courtyard. All the homes in the area are on 1/2-acre lots, and they all have back yards that face the mountains. The road in the area is unpaved, and the house is about a 10-minute drive from shopping. It couldn't be more different than where I live now.

Buying the house was just the first step on the road to my new, post-retirement life. As part of my plan for that new life, I'm reading a book about wishing. It's called The Wishing Year, by Noelle Oxenhandler. It was recommended to me by a woman with whom I have shared my recent dreams about my post-retirement life. I'm not even 1/3 of the way through the book, but I have started a daily practice of 'active wishing' for a couple of things that will, I hope, bring joy to my life.

I find the concept of 'active wishing' (that's my term for it) to be intriguing. Can wishing for something actually make it happen? Does 'putting it out there' really bring us the object for which we are wishing?

I can't answer that just yet, but I know that finding this house on the Internet and flying to New Mexico to see it seem very natural, almost pre-ordained. I'm not one to make rash decisions, but everything about this just seems right.

I still have to work for a few more months before I can move to the Land of Enchantment. But that's OK. I can do a lot of wishing during that time. Julia and I will spend a couple of days painting her bedroom in the new house over the Christmas holidays, then go to Santa Fe for Christmas. I have always wanted to spend Christmas in Santa Fe. The adobe buildings, the farolitos on Canyon Road on Christmas Eve, the snow, the beauty of St. Francis Cathedral -- all should make it a special holiday for us. And it will give us a taste of the new life that awaits us.