PUTTING MYSELF INTO EVERYTHING I DO

I am in the process of leaving a home I love very much. Selling my home was an unexpected event. Those curve balls do come in life just when we think we are in control we are reminded in a very blunt way, that we are not.

I remember the first night that I slept in this condo in August of 1998. My sons were 8 and 10 years old. I remember that night because I was thinking I had made a big mistake. I felt so out of place in what later would become my most cherished home). It was the first home that I bought without a spouse. I did it all on my own. I got an excellent price but the place needed a lot of work. For one thing, there were no lights installed and the only way to get light at night was to get some lamps. I didn't have enough lamps at first and the kitchen was a disaster. The elderly woman that sold the apartment to me had the original kitchen from 1957!

Little by little over the next 11 years, I fixed up rooms and sections of rooms. The apt went through many transformations as I went through mine. My boys grew up, they needed their own rooms and I found a way to create 3 bedrooms in my 2 bedroom apartment. My son became an excellent pianist and so there had to be a place for his grand piano.

The place became cozier and cozier. Ceiling fixtures were installed. Bathroom changes were made. The kitchen was renovated. I put love into every action that I took toward making my apartment a home for me and my sons.

Then one went to college and the other one moved out and before I knew it, my home was on the market, freshly painted and all those last minute touches that I had put off for so long, were completed. In fact, by the time I put it on the market, it didn't look like our home at all anymore. Instead it was a magazine version of someone else's life. Not mine.

After selling (in 3 weeks), in this market at a price that was better than ok, the days have dragged on until the closing. 3 months have passed. My apartment becomes emptier and emptier. Boxes are in storage, clothes, games, CDs and even some furniture have been given away. The floors are now bare.

I am moving into a temporary arrangement and most of my life is going into storage until the new chapter takes form. That could take months or it could take years. In the meantime, a friend of mine, exactly my age, also a single mother, was hit by a truck while riding her bike and died. I found out by googling her name. She hadn't returned my emails for months and that had never happened before in our 15 year friendship. A death like that reminds us that life is so precious and short. That a friend we thought we would see every Christmas (when she would visit NYC), could suddenly not be there anymore, leaving behind her daughter with whom she was so close. I knew what her dreams were. I knew what her plans were. I knew what her issues were. Had she known that it was going to end now, this way, I wonder what she would have done differently. I wish I could ask her that now.

So the point of all of this is, that as I wonder about the petty little things...like how am I going to cook in this temporary situation, or do the laundry and how am I going to even survive moving from my own home to a room in someone else's, I am reminded that someone once told me that "you are the lucky one, you get to take yourself with you". Those who are not in my life anymore don't get to have me in their life, but I do.

I breathed my love and my life into my home, my job and the upbringing of my children. Was it enough? I don't know, but I put every ounce of love that I had into all that I did. Even that, for some, is not enough. Now it's time to breathe that same love and life into myself. Does that sound selfish? Others have benefitted from what I haven't given to myself. To grow spiritually and to become a better person I have to now be that for myself.

ps. this is where I was led when I googled my friend
http://www.yogaspace-ct.com/sp/FrancoiseEsteve.htm


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