2 boybarians. 4 cats. 1 piano.

when i was little we didn't watch tv. i mean REALLY little. by the time i was 9 & 10 & 11 i knew the theme songs and formula to every show worth watching. but when i was really little, when my mom was still with us, we got to watch Little House on the Prairie. i want to say it came on only on sunday nights, and that it was a big deal, and that i had to have my bath first, and be in my pajamas already, with wet hair brushed, and lots of anticipation. but i may be just remembering that the way i want to remember it.

anyhow, i DO remember very clearly when they packed up and left the big woods for the prairie. i remember the wagon and the stuff and the kids and ma and pa. i remember seeing all this and thinking, but they live in the big woods? that's their HOUSE. that's where they LIVE. and i didn't know about the magic of tv at such a young age, but i couldn't help but thinking this was just, well, magic. something that would happen and then it would all get changed back. you know, BACK. to where it was before.

so i watched this for awhile with my mom and dad and my two sisters and eventually i turned to my mom (and shit for me to remember this moment is magic in itself. believe me. magic.) and i said

'but they are going back. right? next show? they'll be back in the big woods, right? that's their house! that's where they live!'

so it's time for the sillymortalfamily to leave the big red house. i'd be lying if i said it was 'entirely' voluntary; that it's not forced at all. that i had 100% certainty of where we will end up.

but i do have 100% certainty that it's all going to work out. that this is just part of the adventure i never planned on myself having. and how fun is an adventure that's planned for, anyway?

see, i am not a cautionary tale. no. i am not. i'm just one more person part of one more family who tried to do it and got caught up in the rising tide of crap that so many other families got caught in recently. not because we were stupid trying to bite off more than we could chew but because after awhile there wasn't anything left to bite. let alone chew.

we fought so hard and so long and in the end we came up short. we gave it everything we had. and it wasn't enough. but, this is not personal. i know that. in the end it just didn't work. and while my heart breaks with the loss, i get the situation and i am so rich in all the ways that actually count.

please allow me for a minute to offer a smidgen of advice. whatever it is you are facing, please do no be afraid. however hard or scary or unfamiliar, nothing ever comes of climbing into bed and pulling the covers over for the duration. maybe for a minute, sure, we all need a break. but after a bit it begins to get hard to breathe under there.

and no one ever got to see a beautiful sunrise or the magnificent sunset with the covers over their head. and when things aren't going the way you may like sometimes it's the break of a new day, the eventual rest of a day gone by, the leaves changing on the trees, the way the air feels different as a season changes. sometimes it's the the little things you notice...that you may not have so much before. because you were preoccupied. or because you were so busy doing something close to nothing that you just.never.noticed. how special it is to be alive. to notice colors. to breathe. to just be able to breathe.

losing a house is like a death, in this regard. it puts A LOT into perspective. boils it down. makes the little things count.

the big things? well, perhaps sometimes the big things are made bigger just because we can make them bigger.

but it's slow, this death, and it gives one some time to gather themselves. so i use this time to count my blessings, to fully understand and to know with all the certainty in the world i am luckier than most. wine helps. ;)

so. i am leaving a house that for all intents and purposes is the family gathering spot. holidays and sundays and birthday parties and saturday afternoons. a house i bought so young and so excited and so full of the future. a house full of possibility. and a house i fully expected to die in.

toys haphazardly 'stored' in the basement for the grand kids, grand plans for skylights and a wrap around porch and a mudroom that would actually be functional and be the envy of all mudrooms everywhere. i got married here. right in the back pasture. with so many who were ever important to me gathered in one spot. my kids and nieces and nephews and kids special to my heart all have graduating heights recorded on the wall between the kitchen and living room. maybe we could get someone in to help us make the gardens what they should be. what they could be. it was all there. potential. the future. love at first sight for a falling down house that i thought i had time with. but there was never enough money. and now, we've run out of time. we always expected that would come later. the money and time. that it would all come. later.

but, sometimes things just don't work out how you want them to.

and this is just the way it sometimes goes.

and so i am sitting here trying to figure out how i move a life nearly 16 years in the making. nearly 12 in this house; complete with 2 boybarians, 4 cats, 1 piano OH MY GOD I HAVE A PIANO TO MOVE! HOLY SHIT A PIANO! and one mama and one papa who have thus far kept it together but are getting so very tired of keeping the world up and spinning, of making it all work out of nothing. who are more than willing and ready to move towards MOVEMENT FORWARD. whatever that looks like.

and regardless of what their hearts have to say about it.

i am at once scared and interested in the great wide open and so very very very very sad.

but, i am going to let go and jump in. both feet. the hugest fucking leap you ever did see. round and round she goes where she ends up nobody (including her) knows. with eyes wide open. because i can still see through the tears, and also because even in loss and as your heart is breaking ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN...and sometimes it does.

everything is possible.

absolutely.

always.

be blessed,

x.