Florida on My Mind

Blog # 7

In March 2020, I put an offer on a villa home at the Tuscany Bay community in Boynton Beach, FL. Soon after, the country went into lockdown. COVID-19 was now a real threat, everywhere. But I still was moving ahead with my plans to buy my dream home in a resort-style development in sunny southeast Florida.

The home seller initially agreed to a date in May for the closing on the house. Then, as the coronavirus pandemic raged on, and it didn’t look like the shutdown of our nation’s businesses and activities was going to end any time soon, the real estate agents on both sides agreed to push back the closing date by a month, to a day in June.

I planned to fly to Florida for the walk-through and closing on the house, which I didn’t want to do remotely, as much as several people suggested it. No, I needed to be there in person, to ensure that my new villa on Toscana Trail was in tiptop shape. Everything had been so rushed in my initial house-hunting trip down there — I had stepped into so many similar homes over several hours in a two-day period. So I needed to walk through and see my chosen home close up before I signed all the paperwork and paid forward all my money. This was a major purchase, and I was going to do it right.

In the meantime, I was busy taking care of things at home in Virginia. I wrote a letter to my apartment management company asking if I could get out of my lease a little early (they agreed, if they could find another tenant). I needed to secure steady, remote employment so that the mortgage lender could be assured that I would be able to pay for my home loan. This was the first mortgage I would be taking out all by myself, without my ex-husband. So I applied for various freelance editing jobs. I also needed to arrange to have my furniture moved to the two-car garage at the family house, to be stored for my oldest son who would soon be graduating from college and planning for his own apartment after he secured a job.

On top of all of that was the ongoing college admissions process for my daughter, Rachel, who was a high school senior trying to make the biggest decision in her life so far. She had been accepted to three in-state schools (Christopher Newport University, George Mason University, and Virginia Commonwealth University) and waitlisted by two (Virginia Tech and James Madison University). She also got accepted to the University of Pittsburgh, although with not much financial aid offered, it was behind our reach financially. And she had been deferred by the only college in Florida that she had applied to: University of Central Florida.

As I worked through the many steps to move to a new part of the country, and became immersed in all the details of my upcoming life in Florida, Rachel’s college-planning roller-coaster continued. To our surprise, she got the news that UCF would not be offering her a spot in its psychology program, so her moving to Florida was no longer an option. I was heartbroken by that news. I had held on to hope that she would be part of my new plan of life down in the sunshine state.

Rachel, however, was okay with the news. It was more my want and need for her to be in Florida than it was her desire to attend UCF. I had asked her about applying to other Florida schools, but she was not interested. She still hoped to get off the waitlist at Virginia Tech, her top-choice school, although as we got closer to the May 1st deadline for all college decisions and she had heard nothing from VT, it seemed more and more unlikely.

James Madison did end up offering her a spot at its university, a top choice for many students in Northern Virginia, but she decided it was not for her. She felt it would just be the second continuation of her high school, where so many students from the local area would be, so she turned that college down. She decided that if she wasn’t going to be accepted at Virginia Tech (where her brother was currently a junior), then she would settle on Virginia Commonwealth University. She accepted VCU’s offer before the May 1st deadline, put down a deposit, and made plans to room with a good friend who was planning to go there.

Once that decision was made, our family turned toward grappling with the fact that we would not have graduation ceremonies and parties for Rachel from high school and her brother Jacob from college (he was graduating from George Mason University in mid-May). These were two more casualties of the COVID pandemic. It was especially hard for Rachel, who was not going to have any of the high school senior traditions that her brothers had enjoyed.

After all schools closed down due to COVID in mid-March, Rachel realized she would never get to walk the halls of the high school with her friends again. She wouldn’t get to be in the spring musical in which she had been cast, she wouldn’t get to go to Prom with her boyfriend, she would miss the college spirit day in which all seniors wear shirts to school displaying their upcoming college or other destination, she would miss the seniors’ day trip to a popular amusement park, and of course she would miss her big graduation day. All of it was cancelled.

This was devastating, and I felt terrible for her. We couldn’t schedule any graduation parties because of the risk of COVID infection, and all the things she had worked toward through high school would not happen. The virtual graduation planned by the high school would be a letdown. But we had to more forward, as so many other families across the nation were experiencing as well.

As I continued my plans to fly to Florida for my house closing in June, and Rachel worked through online schooling until her virtual graduation, we discussed what our summer would look like. Our swim-club pool would be closed. My kids’ summer jobs may not come through. The security clearance background check being sponsored by a potential employer for college graduate Jacob was dragging on much longer than expected. And Rachel’s annual gig as a junior counselor at a Girl Scout camp was cancelled, another place where she would have been honored as a recent grad.

A longtime tradition in the D.C. area for graduating seniors was to have “beach week” after their graduation date, where the youths go to popular ocean destinations in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, or South Carolina for one week, renting large beach houses with their friends. Before the nation had gone into lockdown, I had planned to go down to the Outer Banks (N.C.) and be one of the mom chaperones at beach week. I had attended parent meetings regarding the rules and regulations for the week, and the girls had signed contracts pertaining to these things. All the families had prepaid for the girls’ trip.

As North Carolina announced that its beaches would be opening back up that summer, we had to figure out what to do about Rachel’s planned beach week. She told me that of all the things that had to be cancelled in her senior year of high school, it was the beach trip that would be the most devastating for her to miss. She really wanted to still do it, and she promised that she and her friends would be extra careful: They wouldn’t go if any felt sick, they would just stick to the private beach by their rental house, and they would all quarantine for two weeks afterward, in addition to getting COVID tests.

The moms got together and had another meeting to talk about the situation. Sitting in one of their living rooms, we discussed which families were still up for it, who planned to cancel their daughter’s participation, and what we could do to make it as safe as possible. Some of us felt that after everything that our kids had lost these past months, it was the one thing we could still give to them. They had all been so careful to stay healthy these past few months. Now, out of the 16 girls who had been signed up to stay at that huge beach house, 12 of them were still planning to go. I agreed to allow Rachel to attend, as long as she adhered to the precautions that I wanted her to follow. The families planned to use one bedroom as a quarantine room, if needed.

My new plan now was to rent a small beach house nearby and go there with my two sons and dog for the week. We could regularly keep an eye on the girls, make sure they had everything they needed, and see that things were as safe as possible. Plus, because I was planning to move to Florida in July, about a month after I closed on my new villa, I wanted special time that summer with my kids. This I would get with my boys that week, and I would be near Rachel at the ocean, letting her have the senior beach week she had been so looking forward to.

So it was settled — we would do the beach that summer. And we moved on with the next steps of our life in 2020. Jacob’s virtual college graduation took place in May, and of course it was not what we thought it was going to be. But we made the most of it, and after five long years he was happy to have his degree in computer science.

Around that time, we got some surprising news: Virginia Tech had just offered Rachel a spot in its freshman class that fall. She was off the waitlist! Because it was mid-May and we were not expecting that, we had already put a deposit down at her other university and she had made plans with her new roommate. All of that went kaput when she got into her “dream school” after all (probably due to families pulling out during the pandemic). She was ecstatic to go to VT, and she would be there with her brother Lucas for one year. That would make my visits to see both of them much easier.

In June we celebrated Rachel’s graduation, such as it was. There were a couple different things the high school did for their graduates: First, there was a drive-through ceremony, where the driveways that looped around the school were festooned with balloons and decked out with banners and signs, and each car slowly came through to receive the senior’s diploma and other things from the masked principal and teachers who came up to the car windows. Second, the graduate could come back for a later scheduled appointment dressed in their cap and gown, and a small, decorated outside stage was erected behind the school, where they individually climbed up the steps after their name was announced and posed for photos on stage with their diploma in hand.

It was a nice effort by the school. Of course it wasn’t as good as a real graduation, and we did not have a grad party, but in the unusual situation that we all were living through, Rachel was okay with it. After her drive-up graduation, I went back to the house that I used to live in, and my ex and I and the kids celebrated the same way we had for Jacob’s virtual graduation: We ordered in the graduate’s favorite dinner, we took family photos outside in front of a nice, natural backdrop, and we watched the school’s commencement production streamed over the television. That was graduation 2020 style.

The next day, I flew to Florida for the walk-through and closing on my new home. It was a tumultuous, emotional time — celebrating the makeshift graduations of two of my kids, and then also moving forward with my own life transition. And all of it had to be done with masks, gloves, social distancing, hand sanitizer, wipes, etc. What a crazy summer!

Everything went well in Florida. This time, I rented a car in order to be COVID-safe. I drove myself from my hotel to the villa in my new community, where I did the walk-through as well as the signing of the contracts in the house. My new home was in great condition, and the elderly seller and his daughter had made sure to get the few things fixed that my inspector had pointed out; they gave me the work receipts. We all were masked, distanced, and careful to stay safe. One table was set up for the traveling settlement rep to go over the papers for us to sign, and first the seller and then I sat down at that table at different times. Both real estate agents were there to help and answer questions.

It was quite a different experience at this kind of home signing, going over important legal papers with a mask on at a safe distance from the other people, and using different pens for each person. I also was wearing glasses for that entire trip because I worried about the virus entering through the eyes.

The home seller, Frank, showed me things around the house, including where the hurricane shutter keys were kept (a completely new thing for me!), how to handle the security system, and where to go to take the shortcut walk to the community pool (which was very close to the back yard). He and his daughter even told me about good restaurants in town. It was a great home-buying moment. I had been nervous about doing this by myself for the first time. The other two times I had bought a house, I had been with my husband. But it worked out fine, even though I was single this time.

I didn’t catch COVID, and I flew back to Virginia as the proud new owner of a beautiful home in sunny Palm Beach County, approximately 12 minutes from the ocean. It was just before my 57th birthday. I was excited about my purchase, and eager to show photos of my new property to family and friends.

About five days after I got back, I packed up the car to drive with the kids and dog to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. I had a great week with my boys. We spent the days on quiet beaches that were not at all populated, we attempted to make a TikTok video in the dunes at Cape Hatteras (don’t ask!), we caught up on Netflix series at night, I did my chaperoning duties at the girls’ beach house, and I had a nice seafood dinner on a restaurant patio one evening with the other chaperones. There were a few snafus at the house that the chaperones and I had to deal with, but it worked out.

Most of all, I was feeling mixed emotions all week about moving away, and sad to be doing it so much sooner than planned, and without my daughter going with me to Florida. So I tried to enjoy every moment there with my kids. I was up and down, as to be expected.

After we returned from beach week, Rachel and her friends quarantined and got COVID tests. I’m happy to say that none of them tested positive. The boys and I also never experienced any symptoms after our trip.

My second son, Lucas, and I flew to Florida a few weeks later to coincide with the moving truck that was bringing the bulk of my things down from Virginia. I had been fortunate to meet the mover at the new villa when I was closing on it, because he was hauling a few things out for the home seller that day. He had given me his business card and mentioned that he often did large moves from the North, coming through Virginia on I-95 before heading down to Florida, and he could add my boxes and bins to his moving truck that summer. I’m so glad I met him. He saved me from having to make a couple trips with my car to get all my clothes, dishes, and furnishings moved down to the new home.

So that weekend in Florida, Lucas helped me unpack my bins, set up my new large-screen TV, and fix some things around the new house, and then he and I spent some more beach time together at the Atlantic Ocean before flying back to Virginia. I liked having the one-on-one time with each of my kids. Jacob would be next — my plan was for him to come out at the end of the summer, once I was settled in.

Back in Virginia, I had several things left to do before my final move across the states: (1) get my car transported down to its new home by way of the Amtrak auto train, which luckily for me traveled once a day between Lorton, VA, and Orlando, FL; (2) get most of my furniture moved to the family house for Jacob to store in the garage until he moved out; (3) completely empty out my apartment and clean it up before handing in my keys; and (4) fly out with my little dog in his carrier at my feet for my last trip to Florida.

But first, my friends threw me a going-away party, and that was an amazing thing. Because the pandemic still had not gotten any better by that week in July, we had to do it outside where it could be carried out safely. My friend Cassandra, who spearheaded the event, decided to organize it in the parking lot in front of the elementary school where our kids had attended years ago (such a bittersweet, nostalgic location for me as I was saying good-bye to everything from my past). It has a bus lane across the front that was not being used in the summer, so that way those friends who were not comfortable about getting out of their cars and joining in on the fun could pull up and greet me from their car in the bus lane.

My friends, all of them masked, came to say good-bye to me from all walks of my life in the town of Vienna, where I had raised my kids for 20 years. There were my old neighbors, my tennis group friends, my book club friends, my “drama mama” friends (from my kids being involved in high school theater), my “Marshall moms” friends (from when Lucas attended a different high school and I got close with his good friends’ parents), and more. There were balloons, cupcakes, and wrapped gifts. One friend pulled up in the bus lane with a nice farewell sign sticking up through her moonroof. Some showed up just to give me a card and say farewell before heading off; they were sorry they couldn’t give me a hug. My tennis friends presented me with a group gift card as well as a wonderful photo memory book with pictures from so many of our activities together over the years, which they had all signed. That got me emotional and teary-eyed. We posed for more photos then, all six feet apart, our smiles hidden away behind our masks.

It was a different kind of going-away party to have, but I’m so grateful we were able to do it. I knew I would miss all these people in my new life in Florida and I would never make as good of friends as the ones I had in Virginia.

But it was time to move on. I was wistful about leaving such good friends behind, and especially sad about leaving my kids in Virginia. But I would only be a two-hour plane ride away. My kids were moving on to different places as well. And I was ready to head to the next chapter of my life.

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