Mixed Emotions

RV Blog June 14 2012

Mixed emotions.  Truly mixed emotions.  There is sadness at having to give up five of my beloved cats and to tear apart my garden to give or sell the pieces.  I know the bank won’t care for the garden, and I will feel better knowing that others will still have the plants I have loved and cared for. 

So, I walk around the garden and look at what I have wrought.  The lilac is over ten feet tall.  What once was only open lawn is now a lush jungle of hostas, peonies, flowering perennials, flowering understory trees (American redbud, hawthorn, white dogwood, among others).  I have a wishing well, bird feeders, bird baths, planters, milk cans, old barrels, ladders with climbing vines, an herb garden (overgrown now, but the thought is still there).  This is a National Wildlife Federation certified backyard wildlife habitat.  I shall miss my little yellow cottage on the corner lot, set back from the street and surrounded lovingly with century old oak trees. 

This has been a place of succor, of healing, of safety and recovery, of spirituality and service to community.  Rick and I have made it a home filled with love and life, a sanctuary for children and wildlife and pets and songbirds--and fairies.  And I am saddened now, to think of losing it all.

Backyard Wildlife Habitat

The lilac on the corner

But the house is not going away, I am.  I am going away into my own future, my next level of development, my next spiritual mission. My reward for these next weeks of angst and hard work with packing and sorting and down-sizing will be two years of freedom, and of time spent alone with my husband.  Nothing sounds more fun than traveling with Rick.  His joyful nature and his wide-eyed wonder at seeing new places, faces and things is a wonder to behold.  I have never spent time with anyone who makes me as happy and playful as Rick.  It’s good for a sometimes deadly serious person to learn to relax and have fun.  It not only chases the blues away, it absolutely forbids the anxiety to take root.

So there is the freedom—to have fun, to be free from the troublesome details of home ownership, and bills.  Not that RVing is without its costs, too, but they seem fewer—gas, satellite, cell phone, wifi hotspot—less than $200 according to current estimates (except for the gas, which could be whatever we can afford this week!).  Yes, there is eating and camping fees, and whatever maintenance is required (plus propane), but overall I don’t anticipate a lot of financial anxiety—another treasured freedom. 

Then there is the freedom to have silence.  To be unavailable for the crises of others.  To read.  To think.  To write.  To paint or walk in the woods or just nap near the sound of rushing waters.  To see stars at night, to hear the coyotes and the wind in the trees.  To learn something new.

The freedom to see the places I have always wanted to see. To walk labyrinths all over the country, to see a multitude of sacred places, to worship at a hundred different shrines. 

Our Lady of the Snows Shrine near St. Louis

So I am excited, too.  And I feel proud when I look at Intrepid, at our Ford Honey Class C RV.  I found it and negotiated for it and paid for it and it is ours!  (With the title in my name, I feel territorial—it’s MINE!) But of course, mine is ours.

Then there are the reactions of others—almost all happily envious—how they wish they could do this!  So I am reminded that this opportunity is truly a gift, an opportunity on so many levels.  So there is in the end the feeling of gratitude, of true thankfulness to an abundant Universe that has brought me here, now, has afforded me the chance to achieve my goals of education and publication and love. 

I am gratified at the little planning stuff, too.  Where will this live?  Do I need that?  How can I set up a working office with a minimum of objects?  Challenging and scary at the same time.  Can I do this?  Yes, yes, I think I can.

My cup is indeed full—with all of these feelings and more.  And I honor, express and embrace all of them, for they are the stepping stones to my “next” life.