YEAR AGO THROW BACK. Really Letting Go. Sept 19th, 2021

This post I’ve included below, popped up on my loved/hated (in equal measure) FACEBOOK memories feature this morning.

Before I rebranded my website, I did A LOT of my writing on social media.
Sometimes, when I read back what I wrote, when it appears in the aforementioned FB memories, I’m thrilled when the post stands the test of time…and this one does.
For me, anyhow.
Is it conceited to say I wrote something that I still love? If it is, ah well, right?

It’s really gratifying to the see the receipts of the journey I’ve been on, since I sold my house, and how my world and my choices really have blossomed and grown since I moved out.
After I…well, after I let go.

Sometimes, I worry that I’m writing about the same thing over and over and over again…but then other times, I realize how fraught, rich and unbelievable this last three years has been, from all the crooked angles that I get to experience it from…and decide that my worries need to go fuck themselves.
This is called How VERY Dare She, after all.

I think there are a lot of us out there, who are solo…dare I even say it? ALONE…during this mothereffer of a world experience…who are still going through the ADDED BONUS of things like the end of marriages or relationships, the leaving of jobs, the leaving of homes, the leaving of cities, and/or the continued evolution after the ends of all of the things I just mentioned, AND MORE…so, I wanted to put this post this up…for all of us.

This was written the day BEFORE the Facebook post I included in my last essay, on Moving Day Eve, if you will.

Day 188 of the Pandemic Part 2

Sept 19th, 2020

Tomorrow is moving day.
Today…I had the pleasure to sit out back on my now-empty deck with no chairs, alongside two people who have seen me through two relationships…one fairly short, and quite historic…one fairly long, and quite recent.
I’ve known Lisa and Kirk since I was 21 years old, and we have sat out in my backyard (backyards with different addresses) many a time, but this time is our last in this house.
I’m now, for anyone following along, 52 years old, plus a couple of days.
They drove up from Toronto, today, to pick up a BBQ and went away with a mini-van filled with things from my almost-gone-home, including the three ferns that I bought mid-summer, that were almost dying until I brought them home, watering and talking them into bushy, full expressions of plantdom.
Those plants were like my spirit, a bit dry and seemingly almost beyond help until I took on the task of nurturing them…I know, the metaphor was too obvious to let pass by.
I bought those weary plants to live on the three hooks that hang on the porch of my almost-gone-house.
The hooks were there when I came, and will be there when I leave.

It’s a strange, exciting, sad, weird and wonderful day.
It’s Moving Day Eve.
Lisa, Kirk and I sat in the sun, on our asses, on the stairs to the deck, talking everything and nothing.
It was lovely.
I was feeling pretty even, mood wise, until I looked into the very back of my large yard, at the two hostas that my dear pups, Cassie and Tyson’s ashes are buried under.

Well.

Lisa pointed back and forth from my heart, to the hostas, and said

She: They are in there…they’re not back there anymore…but there.

Good friends are hard to come by…and I grateful as fuck to have a handful of the most colourful and loyal ones around.
They are like a small but glorious garden of wildflowers.
All so different and beautiful…and wild.

I am happy. I am sad. I am excited. I am melancholy. I am.
I just fucking am.

I have NO idea the home I will choose to next put my bones in…but I DO know that it will be mine.
Only mine.
Till I move one day, of course, and someone else makes it theirs…because that is what happens.

Life.

Lisa and Kirk kept me in the moment, in the present, and they reminded me to look forward to my future.
When they drove away, I walked back into my house feeling my alone…into my house that has shadows on the walls where pictures used to hang, holes in the wall where nails used to be…and looked at my empty front hall.
Pretty empty, ya?

But I will keep that sign. I like it.

OPEN.

Yes.
Also, I will tuck into my suitcase that picture you can see on the wall beside the window, that contains this phrase that inspired my first tattoo.

“My dear,
In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that…
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.

Truly yours,
Albert Camus”

Namaste, bunnies and kitties.
Onward…again.
Wish me luck tomorrow…moving makes me kerfuffled

UPDATE: I made it through that move like a champ and bought my new home a few months later…and had to go into my storage space, and move AGAIN.
Here is my home…with that sign. That picture with the Camus quote hangs not very far from the sign.

I love my new home…SO SO SO much.
I’m so glad I let go. SO glad.
Have a wonderful day, all!