The Ranch: An Update

 I have not written much lately of The Ranch.  That has been somewhat by accident, but also somewhat by intent.

---

A short history:  The Ranch is a property in Old Home (near where I grew up) which has been in our family since the late 1940's.  This was where we went for years when I was growing up for holidays and over weekends.  My mother went up there when she was a child; later my father joined her and so - literally - I have been going there my whole life.

In the late 1970's my parents and my maternal uncle and his wife bought the core of the property from my Aunt:  the Ranch house with its outbuildings, a small cabin, and approximately 230 acres of which my parents purchased 90 acres after the property split.  They built a home there in the early 2000's and spent the next 20 years there until age and disease forced them to move.

For years, my sister and I had an unwritten agreement: when the time came to separate the estate, I would get The Ranch and my sister would get the rest of the estate. We figured the amounts would be about the same.

For well on 30 years, this was the place that I kept dreaming of getting back to.  The dream became harder when, in 2009, Hammerfall sent us packing halfway across the country.  Suddenly a visit was not an relatively manageable drive, but rather a long haul by car or expensive haul by plane.  Our visits dwindled:  once a year, possibly twice a year.  

But still, in my mind, The Ranch was my home.

---

In June of 2020 I was able by a freak of fate called The Plague to be able to spend one week a month there - first to help my parents, then when they moved in early 2021, to make sure the place was more or less taken care of.  That extended through 2021all the way to early 2024.  

Then, two things happened in 2024.

The first was that - with the passing of my mother - the question of the estate became real, not a theoretical exercise. The second was that due to Hammerfall 3.0, we moved back across the country much closer to Old Home - but, with the move came a job that required me to be on site 5 days a week.  My week of visits immediately compressed to a weekend at best - and by weekend, I meant not more than 30 hours from wheels down to wheels up.

A week in a place on a regular basis can hold the makings of normality.  One long day once a month or once every two months does not.  And so, when the thought came into my head in August of last year that I was getting tired of doing this, it was not as surprising as it might have been two years prior.

Which was followed, a month later, by a to that point heretical thought:  What if I never moved back here? What if we sold The Ranch?

Somewhat attesting to my maturity (rather surprisingly) I did not dismiss this thought out of hand.  I sat with it.  I asked my sister if I could have until November to make a final decision.  I reached out to The Ravishing Mrs. TB about it.  I talked with what is my Brain Trust:  The Outdoorsman, Rainbow, La Contessa, The Director, The Shieldmaiden, Uisdean Ruadh. 

And I did a lot of thinking.

---

The fundamental reality I was forced to confront was taking life as it is, not life as I would like it to be.

Assuming everything holds together (perhaps a silly thought, but we have to operate on some sense of normality),  I have up to a decade of work left ahead me before I could think about retiring.  I - above all people - know that circumstances happen that can disrupt where one lives and works without warning.  And yet, one has to "be" somewhere.

I thought about the idea of 8 to 10 years of building a life somewhere, only to decide to lift it up one more time to move somewhere else.  This past time, it was after living somewhere for 15 years and that was hard enough.  I do not relish the idea of doing it again.  And, as I have related over the past 16 months, there are "signs" that this is where I am meant to be, at least for now: a church where I have "spoken to" more than once, a dojo in my iaijutsu style that is only one of a handful in the United States.

And there were practical applications as well.  Frankly, we are reaching the point where things like reliable medical care need to be a thing.  And quick medical care, not 40 minutes from the hospital (as it is at The Ranch).  And an airport within an hour of the house, as likely our children will never live near us so we will have to go to them.

But most of all, something had changed.  In me.

I cannot fully tell you what it was.  But something changed between March and August of 2024, something that skewed the cant of my life away from a place I had been going to my whole life towards something unknown.  It was fueled in part by the realization that for more years than I can count, I have always been between places, between New Home 2.0 and The Ranch or now New Home 3.0 and The Ranch.  Going and coming, but never enough to build a life or make connections.  I found that perhaps, for the first time, I was willing to admit that like Bilbo Baggins, I was stretched thin, like butter scraped over toast thinly.

And so, I told my sister that it was time.

---

This has, of course, set off unexpected ripples as well.  The Cowboy and The Young Cowboy have started the process of winding down their operations there.  Uisdean Ruadh is aware of the sale; I have advised him as strongly as possible that he should probably be ready to start looking for a new place.  My Aunt and Uncle and Cousin have started discussions on what it will look like when the property that is largely shared - the meadows, for example, have to be delineated and separated.

Even if done gently, the ripples do unintentional harm.

---

How do I feel about this decision 9 months in?  At peace, perhaps surprisingly.  The biggest challenge - just making the decision - is done.  Now events are on a process, if not on a timeline, and will run their course.

I confess that in this I have been strangely comforted by FOTB (Friend Of This Blog) Juvat from Chant de Depart. He and his wife ("Mir. J") have been going through their own preparations of sale for a property that I believe they thought they would be at for many more years, fueled by their own realization that things and priorities were changing for them as well. In a way, I feel better about the ability to face a changing situation - and make a choice, something which long time readers know is a difficult thing for me.

---

This weekend finds me back at The Ranch again for a weekend stay - perhaps my last weekend stay, as everything that was in the house that we did not remove for ourselves is gone in an estate sale and dumpsters - the pictures of the house the real estate agent has posted are jarring.  I have a few items in the Master Bedroom closet I need to pack up and take down to the Barn, the temporary storage location until we move them into storage, which really should happen before the end of the year.

I have still have trips on the books once a month to fly there for a Saturday. I have no idea what there will be for me to do at this point; the realtor is taking care of a lot of things now and with the potential for a client visit at any time, likely the last thing he wants there is a random visitor on the property.  But my friends are still there, and my Aunt and Uncle, and my sister and The Outdoorsman of course, so there is no reason not to keep going. 

But in the back of my mind I now know that there will come a day where there will be one last trip that will be unlike any other, the last time that I will walk that land as someone that belongs there, not someone that is visiting there.  I cannot tell you what that visit will be like, although I suspect it will be a mixture of relief and regret.

And what then? I do not fully know.  I do not know that here in New Home 3.0 is where "home" will be (although I do feel strongly called here).   What I do know is that, perhaps for the first time in a very long time, there will be a sense that "this" really is where I am.