Love Letter to my life #80: Patterns: breaking some and re-installing others
Letting go of the pattern of moving every two years
For the past 23 years since the illness and death of my husband, I have moved every two years (and, in some cases even more frequently). While I had no intention of being a gypsy, I had the freedom to follow whatever called me … especially after a couple of major downsizings that left me relatively portable. I would go somewhere, think: “I could live here” and wind up moving. (from Santa Barbara, CA, to … Bishop, CA, Fresno, CA, Coarsegold, CA, Tulsa, OK, Mountain Home, AR, Lafayette, CO, Oakridge, CA, Arroyo Grande, CA, Grass Valley, CA, Ajijic, MX, Reno, NV, Chester, CA, Julian, CA … now Isla Vista, CA.) It may sound ridiculous, but there was always something prompting the moves.
That is the backstory to this announcement: I have been here, in the same place, for three years … with still no thought of moving some place else. While there are no guarantees, this is the place I fell madly in love with many decades ago; my roots are re-growing and this looks like my frog home … (here until I croak).
In some ways, I think Substack channels some of that driving energy to move or change by allowing me to go whatever direction calls me in words and images. I came here after publishing my second gratitude journal (Gratitude Mojo) and posted in that vein for a year and a half. As posts began to head off in other directions, I shifted to Wild Beauty and loved exploring that territory.
When it became clear that the Trump administration was going to attack democracy, I shifted to an identity of curating positive, hopeful voices in these strange times, with Voices of the Hopeful. This has been a good change and I am learning a lot about our democracy, our colorful, challenging history, and how much damage leaders with self-centered intentions can do under a constitution we thought would prevent abuse.
However, I think I overshot myself. In January, I decided to go all in on writing about this hell-bent-on-dismantling-democracy regime. In February, rather than writing #80 in my monthly Love Letters to Myself (begun July 17, 2018), I started a new series of love letters, assuming it would be an ongoing series until we emerged from the crisis … or succumbed. So far, there have been three of these letters.
Now I’m starting to miss my letters to myself and feel somewhat out of balance.
Our fight for democracy is one of the most important things going on in our world. It is worth fighting for. However, it is not ALL of life for any of us … at least not yet.
I miss my monthly check-ins with myself, so, I’m picking up the thread of love letters to my life. Most of my moves have involved buying a house or RV or something, but now I’m discovering what a perfect thing “not owning” is. Maintenance? Fill out a request and someone whisks in and takes care of it. Meals? Three times a day, no shopping, and no stashed away junk food to call to me at all hours. Walking distance to a wide range of beaches, open lands, restaurants and other commercial outlets.
In the past three years, I’ve only had one minor “move attack.” I went to Colorado for a writing conference in the delightful small town of Paonia. I fell in love and thought “I could live here.” After being home again for a few days, I settled for making a flipbook about the trip and wrote, “In another life, I might live here.”
Here’s a glimpse:
Three years ago, just as I was moving into Friendship Manor, a retirement center here close to a fine university on the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean, I wrote: Death Day letter #47, May 17, 2022 and reflected on my thoughts about owning a home.
One of the few times I've ever felt depressed was when I bought my first house with my first husband. We were on our way back to college after he returned from Vietnam and finished his tour with the Marine Corps. The government offered some sort of assistance for first-time home buyers and tacked on a requirement that it be new construction. There was ONE such house available in Stillwater, Oklahoma ... a tiny cookie-cutter, scraped-bare dirt patch on the edge of town. One day, a lonesome cow wandered into our yard and ate my newly planted red bud tree. It was that kind of place.
We were thrilled to find affordable housing, however that's when a strange spiral of depression began. I knew I should feel elated, however, instead, I felt burdened. Instead of feeling a pride of ownership, I felt owned and some sort existential fear about losing something … or like a door somewhere that I didn’t know about had closed preventing some unknown possibility.
Over time though, I put the feeling aside and went on with life, bought and sold many houses, tried different housing options, and one more husband (who left way too soon). It wasn’t until I was moving my thrice-downsized stuff into Friendship Manor, a senior community on the edge of the UCSB campus, that I realized the feeling of being owned by houses had evaporated. I was/am free … free of the expectations and responsibility of home ownership … of being an “adult.”
Somehow I’ve entered a zone of freedom from expectations … most likely of my own creation since I don’t think other people are bothering to create expectations of me. As the old joke goes: when I was 20, I worried about what people thought about me. When I turned 40, I quit worrying about what people thought about me. When I was 60, I realized they weren’t thinking about me.
Addendum: It may be time to come up with the line for When I turned 80 … since that number is rapidly approaching. It’s time to truly understand that this is my life and the world will go on regardless of what I do. And, the main person who values my life and can make choices about what I want in that life is … me.
Intention: So, I intend to continue writing about and resisting the current state of our country, but once a month, I will write this love letter to my life. If you should decide to write a periodic love letter to your life, let me know, I would love to read it.
Sweet Paonia, as Nancy calls it...
Best yet. Love the flipbook. And the photo at sunset is brilliant.