The Year in Preview

Once again, I had the best of intentions. I was going to look back at 2013. There was a lot to look back at. But I didn’t get to it. So instead, I’m going to look at what 2014 will bring.

Some of it will be brand new. We’re moving, and not just a little bit. After 23 years in the same house, and a nice round 25 years in the Albany area, we’re moving to Philadelphia. When you have no family connections, no school needs, no history with an area, the process of picking a new neighborhood to live in is wildly daunting. Not clear yet whether we’ll be somewhere in the city itself, which has a lot of attraction, or out in the suburbs where I wouldn’t have to drive to where I work (and car commuting is AWFUL in Philly.) Finding good places for road biking is a challenge, and that weighs heavily on me.

Despite my crazy love for the history of Albany, Schenectady and Troy, I’m also crazy excited to be going somewhere where there’s so much art, a vibrant downtown, and a lot of life. Only real regret is that we’re not going to be in Troy, which has been more and more our home city in recent years, a place where we can’t go without running into people we know. Would have liked to have had that experience.

Also coming up this year, we’re kicking our younger one out the door and on to a successful career as a mad scientist. She got the college of her choice and a massive merit scholarship, so we figure now is as good a time as any to avoid empty nest syndrome by simply blowing up the nest.

Blowing up the nest, however, is time-consuming. Despite having a small house, we have a LOT of stuff. Much of it will not make the move (we try not to talk about it in front of the objects that aren’t going to make it). There’s a lot of sentiment going around as we re-discover things like the Bugs Bunny hand puppet I used to amuse my baby while “watching” her – meaning I would prop my arm and the puppet up while I napped on the floor next to her, periodically wiggling its ears, desperately dozing for as long as she would sit still. It was never very long.

There’s a new job, of course, and that’s largely underway already. It’s a huge amount of work, but nice to be doing work that people actually care about again. My previous employment was my first experience ever with being utterly irrelevant, and I can’t say I cared for it. I’m used to being ignored after I’ve been listened to.

I need to find new bike trails and roads, canoe launches, places to get my car fixed, places to get a haircut. It’s a bit daunting. Some people think we’re crazy for taking this on when we’re past the half-century mark, but serious, what else would we do for the next 50 years? I learned to ski, run and swim, all after I turned 40. Gotta try new things.