Posts
Nov: 2015: A year late…but better than, you know. I’m writing this intro on the year
anniversary of my big move from the house I lived in for 21 years to a rental
apt. I hope to share my thoughts on how
the year went, sooner, rather than later.
Dec. 2014: It's been a 2
year dry spell for me. I lost my muse, and everything I started writing
about seemed unimportant as I wafted around in cyber limbo.
After having gone through one of the most important, stressful
events in my life - a move out of my home of 21 years, the wells have sprung.
I now know why I lost my desire to write anything substantial all this
time. I needed a
change, a shake-up, a forward motion. And so it happened.
As I write this, the yoke of home ownership lifted, after selling
my house of hopes and dreams, the house that I moved into, 9 months pregnant
with my last child. My hopes for an almost perfect life loomed large.
I was prepared to raise my 2 boys, ages 5 and 3 and my baby daughter in
that spacious colonial with the big backyard and build a comfortable, nurturing
life for myself and husband.
My expectations of being a Mom and taking
care of a house were not realistic and I discovered a lot about myself. Like
being a stay at home Mom and raising kids and attempting to keep up with
housework or decorate lost its charm very quickly. I had given up my dream job,
working as a public relations copywriter at an ad agency in L.I. to have
children. I was even asked to continue
on a part time basis, but Motherhood grabbed me by the arm and decided to
overwhelm me with nursing, no sleep and soothing a crying baby. I was not prepared, never took a class and
apparently didn’t read the manual. 
13 years later, a swing set, gazebo, 2 dogs and lots of custom
furniture, I was going through a divorce. My kids were young and suffered
the brunt of the cruelty and life changing events of my husband's and my
unraveling relationship. I held on to that house, because it was
comfortable, routine and I didn't have a lot of options at that time. But
then, I continued to hold on to that house through the kids’ high school and
college years when they had lives of their own and needed their rooms less and
less, and certainly didn’t need their swing set in the yard anymore. Why? I’m really not sure. Maybe because it was easier to continue to do
the same thing instead of make a great, frightening change. What is it that’s said about insanity? Doing
the same thing day after day and getting the same results? Definition:
insanity. 
I became a personal trainer and continued to freelance write, as
the years rolled on, seemingly at an accelerated pace. Until, I’d had enough, with home ownership
and leaks, and boiler repair and everything that goes eventually wrong in a
home. The only thing that gave me comfort
was when the kids came home to visit and I could revert to being Mommy,
cooking, complaining and beaming at them. Or when I went outside to my lovely
yard, planted and watered my flowers and vegetable garden and swung in the
gazebo.
Then there was the memory of standing outside my heatless house in
my yard on that frigid, but sunny day, after Hurricane Sandy trounced through
my yard, felling trees, and raised my arms, outstretched to the sun and thanked
God for this moment of warmth.
Selling, throwing out and
donating 21 years of my life, 3 stories, shed and garage full of stuff was
daunting, liberating, but also depressing.
I threw out the kids’ old toys, ex-husband’s Valentine’s Day cards and
whatever else I could bear to part with.
My kids accused me of being a hoarder and over sentimental. But when I saw those adorable projects the
kids made, I’d cave and set them aside in a small plastic bin.
With the intensity of a project manager on deadline, I had about 7
weeks to get rid of most of my house stuff, book the moving truck and close on
the house 2 days before Thanksgiving.
Some type of lunatic power possessed me after the moving truck moved all
the big furniture. I really only took my
dining room set and piano, books, CD’s and records. All of my other personal items I ended up
carting and boxing up and moving myself. Going up and down 3 flights of stairs
in my home and then 2 flights of stairs in my new apt., not eating, combined
with sheer exhaustion for those last 3 weeks resulted in an unprecedented
weight loss of 8 lbs! Aha, so that’s
how it’s done – 8 hours of movement daily, spare eating, exhaustion and voila,
pounds came off without even a thought – what a miraculous feat!
I’m now settling in to apartment living and some of the 8 lbs and
sense of calm have returned. The loss of
my yard and letting my dogs run free is one thing I’ll miss. Not much of a cold and rainy day walk kind of
a person, but the noose around my neck of solo home ownership is gone. I will
also miss my garden and flower plantings, which I can only limitedly do on my
terrace.Yes, this is a new chapter, beginning, plot line, one of calm and peace,
less worry, but not boredom, sorely needed.
