I’ve been asked a few times over, “how is it in your new place?” and I’m silenced by the question. I don’t know how to answer it, “It’s good?” I reply. The stability it brings to my life at times makes me feel like I am not living. To me living is exploring, it’s adventuring, it’s continually going till there is nowhere left to go. I like my life like I like my mind, unstable.
There’s a huge part of me that doesn’t want to know where I will be tomorrow, what I will see, where I will sleep. The security I have in my life today is good for my fear of the future, although I have very little fear of that nowadays. The knowing I’ve a place to stay and no one can kick me out and all the money put into this place is more of an investment than a payment, that is a good feeling. But still, my reply when asked “how is it in your new place?” is in the form of a question and not a statement, “it’s good?”
I’ve looked at my lifestyle from different points of view, trying to understand myself better. Just because I see my life as this, doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily that. Where is my head space when looking at it, what has occurred in my life prior to that view? Am I being cynical, am I filled with elation, is there anything guiding my present perception?
I’ve seen my life of travel as many things in the past, I believed that’s what it was at that time. “You’re just avoiding being an adult” I would tell myself. “You’re afraid of commitment to anyone or any one thing” I would say. “You’re trying to fill a void in your life by constantly looking for something new” “You were born to live like this, this is your happiness” so many different judgements of that lifestyle.
All of them being made in moments when I needed understanding and answers to that desire. And now, owning a place, the dream most all people have, and here I am with the answer of “it’s good?” It’s only taken most of my adult life to come to terms with myself and my drive to be and do and live a certain way. It’s been remarkable the amount of people who have told me the why’s of my actions and at times I listened to them, swaying my beliefs from conviction to question. Why is self-doubt so powerful for most of us? Why is it that it’s so hard to say “I was just made this way” and accept it?
Is it fear that hinders us from accepting truths about ourselves? Is it that we compare ourselves to the populous around us and see that we are different and instead of holding that as something special we turn it into something bad?
Our perception of self weighs greatly on this, most times we set our self-judgements in stone, forgetting we are always growing in one direction or another and hence we are always changing. But what about when you are something for most of your life and it’s unavoidable being that thing. You try and change who you are, you try and stifle the desires, the pull, but you can’t.
I love my van; I love it more than any other object I’ve ever owned. I feel zero stress when I am in there going somewhere and I feel like I am living as I am supposed to, unbound to the world and all the harshness that is derived from living in it. I had always prided myself on what I could endure mentally and emotionally, “keep throwing hell at me, I’m used to it.” But today and for a minute now that has not been the case. In my older years I have grown quite sensitive to my surroundings, at times I feel like I am an open wound, and the world is salt.
I’ve gone so far to simplify my life that I shrunk my business from 3 employees to a ½ an employee, I let go of over half of my possessions, cut my overhead down drastically. I have done so much to elevate that which eats away at my sanity. I have finally made it to a point where my life is mentally and emotionally manageable again, even more so since I am not in a relationship. I’ve grown into humility and humbleness, small and simple. Someone who dreams of riding his bike down long loopy trails and falling into a love one more time, that will last till my time ends.
This transition has not been easy, to have less, to be less, my ego and fear want nothing to do with this. I see the people eating at all the fancy restaurants as I peddle by, men in their collared shirts and woman with their thin dainty gold necklaces dangling off them. I feel the $100,000 cars wiz by me like I am standing still, leaving me in the wake of road dust and scattered leaves. I’ve the friends with the cars and boats and houses and all the things, and I wonder, how are they able to do it? Run these big business’ and not lose their shit? And all I can come up with is that I was not made for that and reconciling with that is not always easy.
There is a spot in this world for everyone, the faint at heart, the driven, the overzealous, the meek. The bold, the rich, the not so well off and those like me – the ones who create self-doubt and at times struggle along their path. It’s like we pick up rocks the size of melons and throw them in our rucksacks, thinking we are clearing our path but really only carrying the unnecessary. “I am enough and who I am today is ok”, a mantra I should recite regularly…
“So, how do you like your new place?” “I think I like it”. I think it has the potential to become a haven from my neurosis. I think I will rebuild my meditation alter and get back into that which cures me of self-obsession and fearing the future. Maybe I’ll be able to fit a workbench in my little shed and get to tinkering with things again. I think I could stay there for a bit and learn again what’s it’s like to be stable. In the fall I’ll use my crockpot, decorate for the holidays, watch the rain drops crisscross the sky while sitting on my loveseat and sipping tea. It can be as magical as I make it to be, as perfect as I can accept it to be. A slow paced life is difficult with a fast paced mind, but I think I have the formula to overcome that.
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