Life has its moments that require you to prepare yourself for changes.  Some changes are happy occasions, some are sad occasions, and some, well some kind of blur the line between the happy and sad.  It's just a matter of days until one such change is about to take place.  This change is going to take even more adjusting because of the nature of the work schedule of a REALTOR®.

On Wednesday, my oldest child, will start his first day of Kindergarten.  It's not the real first day because it's only an hour and a half long and my wife will be accompanying him.  It's really more of an orientation than anything else.  On Thursday, our lives will be permanently changed, when my son starts his first official day of school.  While it's an occasion that all parents are proud of, it is a bit bittersweet because we no longer have the freedom to just take a day and go somewhere as a family without thinking about it.

This is particularly challenging as a REALTOR® because we often work on weekends, which is the time that my son will be off from school.  Fortunately, I work from home, so I can set my schedule to try and be here as much as possible on school days, but that won't always be possible.  One of the best parts of being a REALTOR® from a family perspective was the freedom to do things during the week to avoid crowds, and the same held true for taking vacations.  It was a great trade-off for working on weekends.  Now, even though my flexibility remains in tact, I am at the mercy of the school calendar, and our family time must be planned instead of happening spontaneously.

All parents go through this at some time, and I'm sure that this bittersweet feeling exists for any parent that has been home with their children since the day that they were born.  It has the feeling of a baby bird take its first flight out of the nest on its own.  For five years, we have been his protectors and providers for almost every hour in the day, sans a handful of hours each week during pre-school last year.  Now we must let him fly on his own and discover the world without our constant guidance. 

The lunches that we often sat down for together will now be with his new friends in the cafeteria, except for weekends, holidays and vacations, although many of the weekend lunches will have to take place without me due to my work schedule.  The selfish part of me would like to freeze this moment in time and keep my little pal by my side at all times.  The rest of me wants him to have everything in the world that his heart desires, and then some. Part of that is getting to experience the learning and socialization that school provides.

Over time we all adjust to the changes that inevitably happen in our lives because we must do so to survive.  We all have to learn to roll with the changes because they keep on coming whether we like them or not.  As a REALTOR®, this year has been a time of change in the market due to the changes in the mortgage industry.  In a manner of speaking, this will be a time of survival of the fittest in the real estate industry, as many of the 1.3 REALTORS® or so will leave the business because of the changes that have occurred. 

Truth be told, the change in the market is much easier to deal with than the change that is going to take place next week.  After all, as much as many of us love the real estate business (including me), at the end of the day most of us do this so that we can provide our children with everything possible that life has to offer.