It’s done.

The house we called “home” for 21 years has been repainted. The yard outside has been cleaned up. It has been “staged” with knickknacks to dress it up just a bit.

My wife and I — along with Toby the Puppy — are now living in our recreational vehicle. We’re comfortable.

Now the wait begins.

We have sold three houses in our 46-plus years together. The timing wasn’t good for two of them. One of the sales went quickly. The other two, um, not so quick.

We’re now hoping the timing of this marketing endeavor is more in our favor. Our real estate agent tells us it is. Contractors we know say the same thing. The painter who gussied up the inside of our Amarillo house has echoed that sentiment.

Here, though, is the deal. We aren’t anxious in an impatient sort of way. We know the sale will occur in due course. We do not expect under any circumstances to be waiting for an inordinate amount of time. However, we are feeling slightly relieved that our task of getting it ready to sell is done.

We’re feeling oddly serene about it.

This retirement life has allowed us to view matters through an entirely different prism.

We sold our first house because we needed the additional space; my mother was ill and had moved in with us, so we needed to move quickly into a bigger house. The second sale came after we moved from Oregon to Texas in the early 1980s. The third sale occurred after we moved from Beaumont to Amarillo in yet another career move.

We had places to go, things to do. Time was not our friend.

This time we still have one more place to go. There’s no career to chase. Just a granddaughter who we want to watch grow up.

We’ll get there.