The High Cost of Liking Where You Are

I live in a 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath house on a corner lot near the downtown of a small town.  I live here alone.  My house has a small one car garage built in the 1920s which houses my motorcycles and my tools, as well as extra stuff that I haven't been able to bring myself to dispose of so far.  I have often thought that I could live just as easily in a smaller, 2 bedroom house with a slightly larger garage (four motorcycles, so yes, needed).

The problem is that I like where I am.  My (ex) wife and I bought the house almost twenty years ago when I thought that there might be children in our future and that a 3 bedroom with a large lawn and front and back yards would be nice to have. Although none of that materialized, I like where I am.

I don't like mowing the extensive lawn, but every time I think of doing the work required to landscape, I look back at the areas I have landscaped already, and the extensive weed beds growing there which desperately need to be weeded, and I think about how much easier it is to mow.

I like my neighbors.  I don't actually talk to most of them, just the couple across the street and occasionally the couple across the alley, but I like them all.  I don't socialize with any of them other than the guy across the street (half of aforementioned couple) but I still like them.  I even have had cordial conversations with various renters in the apartments behind me.

In spite of all that, I sometimes think about cashing in the $240k that the property would probably bring and putting it into a smaller place that would require less maintenance and less upkeep.  My house was built in 1909 and I have spent a fair amount of the past twenty years restoring things, but again, I like it here.

There are projects that still need to be done.  For example, the upstairs hallway, the stairs, and the living room still need the wood floors to be refinished (I've done the dining room and the three bedrooms).  The front porch (enclosed) need the flooring to be completely torn out, the house to be jacked up and stabilized in one corner, and the front porch to be re-floored.  It is going to take me a significant amount of time and energy, mostly because I am a math teacher and Harley mechanic, not a contractor.  I also wouldn't mind a renovated main bathroom and kitchen.  I won't get either, because ... like I said.  But I like it here.

I could theoretically buy one of the small places down the block and move.  Then I would have to, on a daily basis, drive or walk past this house and remember how much I liked it.  So I won't.  Cause I like it here.

I just have to remember that when I am spending my weekends on projects that aren't going anywhere near where I thought they might go, or when I am mowing or weeding for the millionth time.  I like it here.

Some day I suppose I won't like it here that much, and all those things I mentioned will become burdens that outweigh all the positives.  Then, I suppose, you will get a different report.

Or maybe they will find me weeks later, half eaten by my cats who have gone feral due to a lack of any food source but one.  But at that point, I won't care.  They can put it on my tombstone.