_{Just when we were supposed to downsize—like anyone our age with any sense—my husband Irwin and I decided to double our load by acquiring our first second home.}

_{As chief home maintenance officer over the decades, Irwin wasn’t 100 percent behind this decision. Weren’t we having problems enough keeping our aging New York City apartment up to code? But let’s just say that for a moment—or long enough to sign a lease—we both lost the ability to think like grownups.} 

_{Of course, we had a great motivator. Renting a place full time in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood would bring us 227 miles closer to our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, nicknamed “Effie,” whom I count among my closest friends. We could extend our normal eight-day stays in basement Airbnbs to entire weeks at a time. It was hard to know if our daughter really wanted us around that much, but to us, living in two cities sounded wonderful.}

_{Falling Hard for a Second Home}

_{Our late-in-life love object: An adorable, circa-1860 blue-shingled house with rose bushes and white columns out front, sitting on a broad, leafy street a half-mile from Effie et al., with a “For Rent” sign out front and, as we could see by staring longingly through the front windows, a sunny brick-lined rear patio shaded by a swaying Japanese red maple. A patio big enough for the entire family! In Midtown Manhattan, we are lucky to see 25 running feet of empty sidewalk.}

_{More sensible grandparents would have taken the family on a luxury cruise from DC to Sitka, Alaska.} 

_{Our 1,344-square-foot find was a tiny treasure, the only detached house on an entire block of majestic, pedigreed Victorian-era townhouses—but that wasn’t the only thing that made it stand out like an eager mutt at the Westminster dog show. As we were to find out, the off-kilter windows needed replacing, the porch roof leaked, and the original heart-pine floors had sprung actual holes. Yet thanks largely to the prime location, the rent was no bargain. More sensible grandparents would have taken the family on a luxury cruise from DC to Sitka, Alaska.} 

_{We happened to notice the place while walking past it holding hands with Effie, toward the end of another short visit. I told myself that she was at an age when she needed us—as did her stretched-thin parents. And we made the perfect loving and supportive backup team, if also liable to give into random demands for outlawed foods and screen time. (“Go ahead and eat potato chips while watching another lurid episode of My Little Pony—it’s been a long day!”)} 

_{We were missing Effie before we even got on the train home. (Oh, did I neglect to mention that we do not own a car, and rarely drive?).}

_{Living in Two Cities: Giving It Our Best Shot}

_{Back on planet Earth, we had to make some hard decisions. Did we really plan to spend half of each month in DC? (Yes!) Could we “amortize” the rent by inviting all our friends and relatives to come visit? (You bet!) And would we mind watching some of our final days go by sitting on Amtrak? (Hmmm—maybe.)}

_{But train delays weren’t an issue, at least at first. I was far too absorbed by the joy of moving half our possessions—clothes, cookbooks, toasters (how did we end up with two of those?)—into the vast recesses of a second home. Our NYC apartment was crammed with my other finds, and this allowed us to empty it somewhat without actually parting with anything. It felt like loosening the belt on my favorite pair of pants.} 

_{We started calling it “our country house.”} 

_{One friend donated a rug; another an end table and a set of plates. It was like nesting, long after most birds have given it a rest.}

_{Those first few weeks were more fun than playing house. Actually, we were playing house, delighting over a dining table we found on Craigslist and a “new” set of used chairs. One friend donated a rug; another an end table and a set of plates. It was like nesting, long after most birds have given it a rest.}

_{Some people in midlife-crisis mode have been known to crave sports cars; I joined the Ikea buyers’ club and shopped for our first new sofa in more than 30 years. It was frankly thrilling.}

_{I also became an expert at curbside scavenging (a thing on Capitol Hill), scooping up abandoned barware, a serving platter big enough for a boarding house and—talk about finds!—a collapsible potato masher. Now imagine coming across an entire Victorian-style wrought-iron porch set. All it needed was a scrubber, four cans of Rust-Oleum and a lot of elbow grease.} 

_{But the best part was all the time spent with Effie. Showing up at school pickup so her folks could work late?  Heaven! The ominous sound of jiggled bolts when she played accent-pillow volleyball on that new sofa? You go, girl! And delivering her home in time for one of her parents’ delicious homemade meals? What amazing timing!}

_{Sobering Up to the Challenges of a Second Home}

_{Inevitably, though, the day of reckoning came around. Some aspects of shuttle grandparenthood were working out just fine, but after extending the lease into its second year, we found the challenges of living in two cities starting to wear thin. During one bout of bad weather we realized it was raining—in the living room. The powder room toilet shot a geyser into the air another day when the century-old, out-of-code vent pipe, hidden behind a bush in the front yard, choked on weeds. The young property manager who took our rent and fielded our calls came by so often to “take a look” we thought about adopting him.} 

_{Once a month, we emptied the fridge into an insulated tote bag, dragged it and clean clothing across town to the train station, twiddled our thumbs on Amtrak for three and a half hours (if we were lucky), then got off and hauled our belongings another mile “home.”}

_{We now had two old homes to care for, along with our two old bodies. In DC, it was creaky knees, meet creaky stairs. In New York, the lobby needed painting and the elevator kept breaking down. There wasn’t even a super to foist this stuff on, never mind someone to bring deliveries in and take our garbage out.}

_{And then there was the commute. Once a month, we emptied the fridge into an insulated tote bag, dragged it and clean clothing across town to the train station, twiddled our thumbs on Amtrak for three and a half hours (if we were lucky), then got off and hauled our belongings another mile “home.” Two weeks later we did all this in reverse. Amtrak gave us points, natch, but it was still about $100 each way.}

_{Oh, yes, there was the matter of money—the carrying costs of two places isn’t easy on most retirees, especially those who spent their careers as writers. I’m so cheap I buy flour in bulk. Picture me looking for it in one place only to realize I’d left two bags of the stuff sacked out on a shelf in the other. And you’ve heard of time warps?  I kept finding myself in a space warp. No matter which way I launched myself at 3 a.m., it was always in the direction of the wrong bathroom.}

_{Doing a U-Turn}

_{Of course, our granddaughter still needed us—just maybe not five days a week. After all, she was now 8 years old and finding soul mates on the playground and event-talking about sleepovers. When she joined the neighborhood Little Gym, we knew our days as trampoline volley-ball hosts would come to a close.}

_{Clearing out and moving on were harder than I thought—though we did meet a lot of colorful people while flogging our surplus goods on Facebook Marketplace. We had a popup porch sale, too, which yielded a whopping six bucks. We also had a hard time letting go of our friendly neighbors. Yet hardest of all was saying goodbye to the 15-minute walk between our house and our granddaughter’s.}

_{Back in New York, where we still seemed to own two toasters, our lives were rather dull, at least at first. Then we remembered why we live here in the first place: old friends, new Broadway shows, an easy stroll to the farmers’ market.}

_{We’ll be back in DC again soon, I’m sure. Some lucky Airbnb owner will have us next time—and we probably won’t linger past the magical eight-day max.} 

***

_{Deborah Baldwin is a former editor at The New York Times, This Old House, and Real Simple who has also written for The AARP Bulletin, Medium, Apartment Therapy, and Passblue.}