I’m not comfortable with long goodbye’s, tending to move ‘adieu’ events along at a good clip. For instance: We’ve spent the four summer months on a boat for the last 20 years. When my husband asked, “Should we think about selling Intrepid?” my answer was, “Okay. Why don’t we plan to find a new owner for her by the end of the summer?”
Guess what? We started advertising the sale (see: http://intrepid-for-sale.blogspot.com/ ) in July while we were in Alaska. By September 10, Intrepid had a new owner. We priced the boat fairly (without broker or title company costs) and we sold immediately. Even better, we got to work with the new owners closely, offering them a notebook of instructions for managing our boat’s unique systems, and we even got a chance to take the new owners out on the boat two times.
Yesterday, when I said goodbye to Intrepid, carrying all our good memories of years of boating in my brain and my heart, I was comfortable with the length of my ‘goodbye.’
Two months of constantly cleaning the boat for pictures and inspections; two months of tweaking the systems that needed fixing; two months of worrying that a system we HADN'T fixed would fail; two months of saying adios to all the marinas where we’ve made friends; two months of throwing kisses to our favorite anchorages. Two months is enough. I shudder to think that most boats take a year or more to sell. Not for me.
My husband is fine with the speed of our sale; I was a little worried I’d taken this particular bull by the horns, but not to worry. He was highly involved in our marketing process and today, he is as happy as I am.
So my question for you is: How are you with goodbye’s and do you worry about them being overly lengthy/painful? Could be I have a strange approach to goodbye’s because I’m an Army brat, forced to leave dozens of countries/cities after two/three years. Heck, maybe you don’t even try to manipulate your goodbye’s. I’d like to know.
As you’re thinking, here’s a look at my website and my books. Happy sales to you! Rolynn
I'm with you. Goodbyes are hard enough without extending them. But goodbyes are necessary. It helps us to let go and move forward. I hope you're moving forward now.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Jana. We celebrated our time on the boat and when I left her the last time, I had some words with her. She wasn't a problem-free boat... every boat has issues...but whenever she surfaced a glitch, she had us in a safe place. Amazing, really.
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