Housebound and Homeless

Its a universal fear, albeit first world problem, as my daughter would say.  But having no place to live even in the musings of the mind can be a terrifying place to inhabit.  I have sat with the uncertainty for days if not weeks during which time the gap between selling a home and finding a home to live in seemed as wide as the Grand Canyon herself.

My boyfriend has FAITH and wisdom to not worry, especially when fretting is futile and wasted energy of which both our resources are limited.  Indeed at times like this, his redneck is more powerful than my Zen, as I tend to still muck around in the muddy waters of the lily pond looking for center while he is peacefully sitting nearby enjoying the garden.

I’m all about contingency planning.  It was part of my job to have back up servers and emergency operations in place to prevent any “down time.”  So when I did my homework and found the cost analysis of a long stay hotel was out of the question, and short term leases on rental homes was an oxymoron … I realized my Plan B was bogus at best.

To make matters of the monkey mind worse, time was running out.  Escrow would close and we would need to be OUT on a fixed date, regardless of my lack of finding new digs.  Because despite my best attempts at contingency plans, removing my contingency of “seller finds a new home” was part of the “successful” negotiations of selling this house.  Its a leap of faith for certain.  And frankly I don’t leap like I use to.

So there were moments of breakdown to be certain.  When I would find myself compressed tightly in a crouch with my back against a wall.  Feeling the energy of the not-knowing and nothing-to-do course through my core.  One day, when the autonomic storm was intense and my mind was melting I took refuge in the big walk-in bedroom closet.  I curled up in the corner underneath a wrack of clothes and sat quietly weeping — realizing full well it lacked grace or style and may have frightened my common sense man.  But to my surprise, he came into the closet, shut the door behind him and came over to me in the dark to lay down.  Without a word uttered, my body began to settle as I felt the soft and slow pace of his breath.  As I placed my head upon his chest I could feel his heart beating slow and steady and as he held my head in the palm of his hand and stroked my hair I felt his faith come through his fingertips.

We both fell asleep in a huddled mass there on the floor.  No words spoken.  No trauma analysis to work through.  Just two bodies pressed up against each other, in the darkness and close quarters.  Nothing more was needed.  And I did not reach out for anything more.

We would be fine of course.  No matter where we lived, no matter what happened next down the road.  I may not be as adept to make those agile leaps as he is, but I am learning through his stillness what it means to be at peace even when it seems life is falling to pieces.

And for the record, we did put an offer on a new home.  Somewhere between faith and fate things do seem like they are falling into place.  Perhaps one day, faith will replace the fear places in the neural plasticity of my brain.  And I will be able to feel an abiding peace as I did in the quiet space of the closet.  As the redneck says “I told you it would all work out babe, why don’t you ever trust me?”  Why indeed.  But that would be a not-so-shaggy dog blog for another time. 😉