Spreadsheets Determined Our Future

We made a rash decision, and we’re not sorry

Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down. Ray Bradbury

Our plans of moving to Italy were quashed

My fiancé and I had talked about moving to Italy in retirement for years. I’d lived there before, and we loved to visit. However, once we looked more closely into the requirements to make a permanent move there, we saw giant hurdles ahead of us in the coming years. We brushed the idea aside, knowing that retirement was at least 15 years away, if not more. For now, it was little more than a pipe dream.

Then COVID-19 hit. Our respective companies sent each of us to work from home. Several close friends and an immediate family member died. It was a wake-up call that retirement may never happen for us; life has no guarantees. We started questioning our futures with a fine-tooth comb. By the time retirement rolled around, what if one or both of us was in poor health, and we wouldn’t be able to get out and do much? What if one or both of us was dead?

We only knew that we were in excellent health, and thankfully both of our companies had employees working all over the country.

A new plan was formed to move within the U.S.

The idea was born in spring 2021, and we told our families about our plan. We said we hoped to move by summer 2022, a little over a year away. Initially, they were shocked at such a significant move to an unknown location just like that. We told everyone our sound reasons and that we didn’t want another day of our lives to pass us by, dreaming of living somewhere warm with lots of exciting things to do, while we could still do it, now that we were working from home. The recent deaths in our lives had brought this to the forefront. Life is fleeting; we didn’t want to wait any longer and felt there was no better time than now.

Our search began. We were living in Des Moines, Iowa, a city with plenty to do, but we didn’t want another winter, and there were a few other things we felt were a bit lacking. We knew we wanted to move somewhere warm. That was at the top of our list; a must-have. It also had to be affordable; we didn’t want to be house poor. Other items were essential, too; a foodie city, a place close to a major airport with future international travel in mind, a place with great history, one close to other interesting cities we’d love to visit, known for friendly people, and so on. We knew we couldn’t have it all, so we created an Excel spreadsheet and weighed the things that were of utmost importance and those that mattered less.

Then we researched. We looked up all the well-known travel and popular websites and some less popular ones, too. There were lists of every kind; the top ten best cities for families, for beaches, with the nicest people, for foodies, for architecture, and best places to retire, among dozens of other categories. One city came up in at least the top twenty, and often in the top ten of many of these lists, over and over; Charleston, South Carolina. We’d each visited once before, decades earlier.

Our idea became a reality much quicker than anticipated

Next, we reached out to a realtor in Charleston and booked a trip. Initially, we thought we couldn’t afford anything in the Charleston area, so we booked our trip to stay in Myrtle Beach and only one day in the Charleston area. What happened came as quite a surprise. The one day we were in the Charleston area, we met with a realtor, saw a few houses, made an offer on a home in a development we fell in love with, and we sealed the deal by nightfall.

When we returned to Iowa, we had to hurry to clean and begin packing up our house, get it on the market, and begin preparations to move. I was beside myself when I called to tell my parents and three kids.

The following six weeks were a whirlwind, complete with enormous obstacles that nearly stopped our dream from becoming a reality, but those belong in their own stories.

Big rewards in life

We moved somewhere we hadn’t even considered a few months prior, all because life reminded us how fragile it is. We did it a year sooner than planned. We feel at peace here, and this move allowed me to change careers entirely. That may have been more important to my well-being than the move itself. Although we see our families less, time spent with them is more valuable; before, it was only a moment here or there. We wouldn’t change a thing.

Sometimes life whispers its secrets to us; sometimes, it yells loud and clear. If we’re listening, we’ll hear its messages.

Major changes are never easy. Leaving a relationship, going back to school, and embarking on a new career, can seem like massive undertakings. Maybe life is trying to say something to you; perhaps it’s been telling you something for a while. Sometimes we can’t make our leap from the safe confines of what’s familiar or easy right away. But as long as we keep listening, life sometimes offers several paths to guide us to where we’re supposed to be.