I find myself at a bit of a loss for words as our time at Allen House ends.
We’ve had the timeshare for 15 years (out of our nearly 17 years of marriage), purchased when we were all of 22 years old. Of those years, we’ve used it 13 times (the exceptions being the years when Libby was pregnant and when Emerson was an infant). We’ve shared visits with our parents and our daughter (this was her fourth trip). It’s brought a lot of joy to us both during our visits and in the knowledge of simply “having a place in London,” which has always given us a sense of being part-time Londoners. Likewise, I’m sure it will bring us joy in the future as we recall happy memories of the times that we’ve spent there.
For me, I think the parting is made a little more bitter than sweet because we’re also coming to the end of our 157×50 (or more like 40…) goal–at least the international travel portion of it. In some ways, that objective has conflicted with our time in London, but we’ve managed to balance the two while rapidly adding continents and countries. We’ve just used London as a base for onward adventures, including last year’s trip around the world.
At this point, I feel like we’re about to enter the shadowlands of our traveling lives. We’ll have seen the better part of the world already, but we’ll have another 15-20 years until we have both the time and means (assuming good fortune continues to smile upon us) to travel as we’d really like to, especially more deeply for longer periods.
I don’t see us becoming full-time expats in retirement for a number of reasons, but I could certainly see us living abroad for a few months at a time in short-term rentals. Returning to London and living in Kensington would be high on that list. And, who knows, maybe Allen House will be part of that future?