2 posts tagged “home”

What you're witnessing here is the breaking of a bad habit.  Exciting isn't it? Here's what happened...

The other day I started a new blog.  [Insert joke related to the number of blogs I'm currently authoring here].  My thought was that I was sick of looking at this huge long list of archives, this stale design, this old and tired conversation that just kept happening in the same way all the time.  So I wanted a clean start.  I ambled over to Word Press and started me a blog. 

And then I got itchy about it.  I couldn't get it to look right. It didn't feel right.  I labored over the design only to be brutally rebuffed by the fact that you have to pay for the privilege of writing your own code.  Nothing was right.  And I found myself missing my little beach tent here.

But the realization of what I was doing hit me at Ikea, the jumbo house of overstimulating home improvement possibilities.  I took a trusty friend with me (hi Monica who doesn't read blogs) to help me stay focused. And as I stood before a blinding array of dressers, discussing whether I should get the six-drawer brown black or the three-drawer yellow, I said out loud, "Well, I wonder where else I'd be able to use this."  I was buying new furniture for my new place and thinking about how it might fit in the next place.  Monica (and this is the reason she got the Ikea nod...okay, actually she drove me there so that was probably a huge factor as well) just look at me like I was an ass and said, "Yeah, no." And then I saw the light.

For some reason, I am just uber-resistant to settling in anywhere.  I am a chronic re-starter...this may be directly linked to my perfectionistic tendencies...if it's not perfect, then I have to start over. I don't like to dwell on my past messiness or re-live the pain of it.  Somehow, the joy of it always gets lost.  I'm like that dog in Alice in Wonderland whose tail functions as a broom, sweeping up the path he just made.  I keep erasing my footprints.  And then I sit, head in hands, wondering how I have no history to lean back into when the times get tough.

So, the beach tent stays.  I am going to move it to it's own domain name so I can re-design it to be it's most glorious, tent-tastic self.  But the structure will remain.  As will the history that it represents.

Oh man.  I'm moving again.  I'm standing in my half-packed, half-unpacked, half-still-packed-from-the-last-move apartment realizing that the countdown has moved into the "weeks" range and I'm doing what I swore to myself I wouldn't do again at least for two years.  Moving.  I hate it.  But the frequency with which I do it suggests there's something I love about it.  Perhaps it's time to unpack that...both the apartment and the "stuff" surrounding it.

Last year at this time Meghan (hi Meghan) graciously agreed to search for new apartments with me.  What a trooper.  But she joked that I have a commitment problem and it's stuck with me; I think she hit on something of a universal , running truth for my life.  It's clear to me that I have a problem "settling."  I've never thought about it literally before but it's true.  The possibility that there's something better out there haunts my dreams.  It motivates my every move (including apartments).  It suspends me in something of a web of anxiety.  Searching, searching, searching.

So, here's the beauty of this move: It's a chance for me to do something I've not done ever, really.  It's an opportunity for me to allow this new place to become home and not just my "Tent on the Beach." (Wow...the implications of this are far-reaching...I might have to do a blog overhaul.)  I think, possibly out of sheer exhaustion, I need to stop searching and just learn to settle here...as the first settling in a series of settlings that, I think, I've been putting off for a long time.

Yesterday I read an article about contentment...I always read these things like I would an instruction manual: "How do I get this Contentment?"  The point was really good.  It basically said it's a matter of choosing it.  Contentment is always there for the taking.  It's being appreciative for what you have and letting the reins loosen on what you want.  It's a living in the present, I guess. It's letting go of searching so fervently.  Already I feel better.

What a nice thought: to fully believe that, in 3 weeks, I'm going home.

[Sigh of relief.]