Don't Chase That Carrot Til it Makes You Sick

I can't remember the last time I sat down to write. It's not that I'm uninspired or that I have writer's block or whatever. I have not had time to sit without my usual guilt. I sit here now with "clean out bedroom drawers" written in ink pen on my palm like a '90s phone number. I miss this. The time sitting still, a Tropicalia at my right hand, two in. James McMurtry in my ears, wondering if in a few weeks, I should buy one ticket or two. My God, I'm happy.

I guess the time has come to share the news. I'll be a proper Athenian in a week and sixteen hours. I never thought in a million years that I'd own anything. It makes way more sense than I ever thought it would. I always said that with Gabe grown, I'd do this. I'd buy a condo in a city somewhere that I could walk or bike or ride a bus anywhere I wanted to be. Nowhere up North. I get cold. Nowhere out of the country, I have a criminal record, you know. And that seriously limits my options. But someone I love found it for me years ago and came to me with hands cupped offering this thing I've wanted so much I was afraid to tell anyone. I cannot make it not make sense.

I got lucky finding love where I wanted to be. I hope my third great love lasts as long as my first mortgage. I'm so happy it scares me. I never want to be more than a long bike ride away again. It's like nothing I've ever known. And it feels more comfortable than like that category five tearing through my life. Comfortable, but not boring. I didn't think such a thing existed. I got it bad. It's been nearly a year. I don't feel any different or less deeply than I did after a month. Safer, for sure. I don't feel differently. He feels. And that's the relevant part here. I think I've found a man who loves me as much as I've ever loved and that's so fucking much. I can be my real own self and he doesn't punish me for it. Seems like not much to ask for, but it took me nearly 40 years to find, so it can't be nothing. I miss him hours after I leave him. I prefer his company to my own. And that's been the idea for the past decade or so. I have to sit Tonia down and thank her properly. That thing she said to me when I was in no state to remember a thing. Sometimes a Divine hand intervenes and God bless her for that.

So I'm in the throes of a move. You know, my favorite thing. I have moments of sheer panic and moments when my spreadsheet that tells me I'm 56% packed and most of my rows are green makes me feel fine. Anyone telling me variously that either I'm fine or looking at me with panic in their foreheads is not helpful. I'm downsizing substantially. That is both the best thing and the thing I wanted with the whole plan, and also excruciating and time-consuming. I'm afraid to throw away anything that my heart needs. And yes, my heart needs much. 

I think the two things that got me most poignantly were the piece of paper where I wrote down Nanny's funeral arrangements when Mama called me and the journal I dug up from when Gabe was two, before my world shook and shifted and collapsed the second time, when I was compassionate and empathetic towards his dad and his situation. I realized I've always been soft and kind and gentle, no matter how much someone hurt me. I thought that was a recent development. Awareness was the more recent. And boundaries. Accepting that I don't have to give energy, love, patience, all my goodness, to people who don't deserve it. Boundaries. That thing about turning 40 and having no fucks left to give? I hope that this is the approaching or even the arrival and man, I feel so good in my heart.

I also have some new connections that can put me in the eyes of the folks who can help me help the place I've always longed most to help. Folks who recognize me at local events now and stop me to say hi and a member on the board who's moved to grants. It feels like fate. Like finding that place you've always belonged and were afraid to step into. Good lord, I'm happy.

I'm sitting here with big ol' tears in my eyes. I'm so happy I'm afraid. That's anxiety. I'm waiting for it all to fall apart. Something in my better self believes it won't.