Riding the waves of other people’s emotions has been a theme for me over the last couple of years.
For the last year and a bit, my family and I have been residing in a beautiful house that is not our own. We were invited to rent the place affordably, and felt welcome here at first, but as time wore on (keep in mind that I am highly intuitive) our presence began to seem like it was a nuisance.
That’s a queasy feeling.
There’s been a lot to say and a lot of turmoil; my son and I were alternately sick for the better part of a year. My partner’s and my art businesses slowed dramatically, as did our ability to focus on making music. A couple of months after we found our footing and started to feel healthy and productive again, we were suddenly informed that it was time to leave.
We arrived as mere figments of several people’s imaginations - including our own - but have since materialized into a very real family of three yearning to settle into another long-term home.
If you’ve been following my “Shakey Mover” series, you know that I am an expert at all things move-related: scouring rental listings, packing, signing up for utility accounts, vetting landlords, providing references, coughing up deposits, packing, stress-packing, rage-packing, and resignation-packing. Living and loving hard in a space, only to leave it behind a short while later. I am, at this point, an Olympic-caliber mover. I could compete at this shit, but I don’t want to. And worst of all, my young son just wants to stay in one place.
We moved here for him, and he’s had an extremely challenging, enriching year.
I think that deep down, that’s all that almost everybody wants: a safe, consistent place to live that is their own. We all pray that we will not have to leave suddenly due to bad neighbours or natural disasters or rent hikes and other forms of profiteering. Almost every other person I’ve talked to in the last 36 months has had to move their home or business due to their landlord deciding to sell.
We all just want to stay, but it’s so often time to go.
Occasionally, I do not vet landlords carefully enough and that leads to a tumultuous living situation and a hasty exit. This did not appear to be one of those scenarios - we moved this time to be closer to family - but I did let my guard down. Alas, I experienced one of the most stressful years of my life.
And now, it is already time to move on.
The next thing is going to be much better for us.
This sure was pretty while it lasted, though, wasn’t it?