2 days November 8, 2009

Up until yesterday I’d been doing a pretty good job of not imagining what it would be like to own a house. I’d tempered my excitement with gloom and doom scenarios, planning for both closing and not closing. I can’t do that any more. The list of To-Dos after closing is long and I keep revising, adding. The possibility of not closing seems less real the closer I get to the closing date.

I’d planned all along to have movers come next weekend, but now that seems so far away. Now I plan to get them to come Thursday or Friday afternoon. I already know I’m taking the aerobed over Wednesday night. I think I would have to do too much Tuesday to stay there that night. But I have a sneaky suspicion that Tuesday night I’m going to stay there. Why would I stay anywhere else other than home?

The duplex is still hanging over my head of course, (interesting I said “of course”) and I’m still in gloom and doom mode there, still expecting to have to turn over my $8000 tax credit to the landlord.  I want to buy furniture with it, decorate have a great Christmas. But I don’t expect I’ll be able to do that. Of course.

Yesterday I sold my stainless steel top table. I’d had it since I lived in New York, one of the few things I brought with me to Austin. I loved that table.  I helped the other new home owner put it into the her van. It was the first purchase for her new house.  She told me “You haven’t gotten to the fun part yet. The last week has been miserable, but it gets really fun after that.” I hope she loves the table.

When I saw the empty space I almost burst into tears. It’s real. I’m (probably) going to be a home owner in two days.

mistakes were made November 2, 2009

I just want to state loud and clear that moving into this duplex was a mistake. I know it was a mistake, everyone who knows me knows it was a mistake, the universe keeps telling me it was a mistake. I’m trying to fix it, alright. I have 9 days left before closing, one weekend left. Cut me some slack, universe!

The next nine days promise to be beautiful, clear skies, blazing sun, perfect temperatures. I want to enjoy them, but I seem to be sinking into a pit of regret, constantly asking myself why I moved into this place, believing deeply that there’s a high price to pay for any mistake.

So right now, this morning is a web of “I’m not going to close on the house, so I’ll be stuck in the duplex as punishment for this mistake and I’ll have to tell my family not to come for Thanksgiving”; “I’ll never find a renter for the duplex, so I’ll have to spend all my tax credit money on it”; “Foreclosure is imminent.”  This last one is especially insane because I’m already fearing foreclosure when I haven’t even closed on the house yet. Who does that?

I do.

One of my family’s mottoes is: “Don’t Make a Mistake.”  When someone does make a mistake, or it’s perceived that someone has made a mistake, we never let you live it down.  A friend of ours opened a chicken place, a national chain. My family members weren’t enamored of that particular chain, so when it wasn’t successful and he closed it, they went on and on about how he’d made a mistake. Each of them told me at least 5 times that he’d had to close his place.  And each time they told me, they spoke in a voice lowered, hushed to convey the true sense of horror. It’s as if one mistake will doom you forever and it will be impossible to make up for it, get out from under it, try again.

Well our friend opened another place, almost immediately, and it’s a great success. If he’d been in my family, he wouldn’t have tried again. My family’s philosophy isn’t “try and try again.” It’s more “try… and if that doesn’t work out maybe you should try something else.”

This philosophy makes life hard because it makes every step a life or death situation and no room for mistakes means no room to try again. And again and again. There’s no room for practice. If I practice the piano, do I get it all right the first time? No. I go through it, hit wrong keys, for the wrong length of time, all mistakes.  As I go through it again and again, I make fewer mistakes and the song comes together. But I have to be willing to hear those mistakes, notice them and still try again.

I heard a professor/minister speak and he was such an inspiration I looked up his church, The Soul Movement: Church 2.0. I went to his church’s website and I’ve been going there almost everyday to read the list under 2.0. They’re looking for believers who will:

• Change the culture
• Not be content at the status quo
• Risk the present to determine the future
• Pursue God-Ordained passions
• Set God-Sized Goals
• Not worry about what people think
• Go after a dream that is destined to fail unless God intervenes
• Stop playing it safe and start taking risks
• Criticize by creating
• Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution
• Keep making mistakes
• Keep asking questions
• Keep seeking God
• Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death

“Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death.”  That’s a goal.

risking it all October 1, 2009

How do you know when to risk it all?

Or at least some of it? Last night, as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling for the, oh I don’t know, 14th night in a row, I tried to apply some self help stuff to my current situation. My current situation is: I’ve found a house to buy, but I just started a fairly expensive lease on a house ( let’s call it an “apartment” for clarity’s sake). The ideal of course would be to get the apartment leased to some other sucker someone else, which is exactly what I’m trying to do. But to no avail. The leasing market seems to have collapsed and there’s a glut of overpriced product. So I’m faced with either pulling out of buying my dream house, or buying it and being up to about $15,000 in debt for rest of the lease which has 10 months left on it.

I knew I was taking a risk when I put the offer on the house.  And I would not be in this situation if the apartment had not been cleaned properly and painted and baby roaches hadn’t been crawling on my towel after a shower. I would not have looked.  I did not expect to want a house as badly as I seem to now.  Maybe it’s misplaced anger about the apartment and my desire to escape it that compels me to take this risk. But as I was thinking about how I could escape this apartment it occurred to me that I didn’t want to move anymore, that the weird little city of Austin was home.

I’ve been running away from home for 25 years, the idea of home more accurately. The idea of being stuck with rules and fears of doing anything that might bring any negative attention, which is everything by the way.  I was not beaten, I wasn’t abused. It just stifling.  And it was my goal to get out, and not live by those rules and fears.

So I’ve found the perfect house to buy in Austin, but I’m stuck in an apartment, with no renters in sight. These two things are driving me insane. Actually it’s not those things driving me insane. It’s me driving me insane. When I think about buying the house I assume, naturally, that the second I buy it, there will be another housing crash and it will be worth half as much as when I bought it. Or I think, logically, what if the neighborhood goes down and I have to barricade myself in my home because of the violence and lawlessness outside my door. How would I survive, alone. In my head it’s all very Mad Max, with gang members in mohawked plumage (Is there anything scarier than an angry person with a mohawk running toward you?  As soon as you see them, you have to know they’re used to making bad decisions). I could easily have thought of any inner city in decline in the Crack 80s, but no. The images my mind came up with are Mel Gibson raging across the Australian desert fighting off crazed survivors of the apocalypse.

Buying my (now) dream house is the smaller of the two fears. Getting the apartment leased is really the Big Fear. What happens if I don’t get it leased by the time I buy the house? I can’t afford the mortgage and the rent. What will happen? I imagine police coming to my new house to arrest me for breaking the lease, theft really, robbing my landlord of thousands of dollars; the once beautiful house falling almost immediately into disrepair because every extra cent I have is spent paying the rent; working multiple, low wage jobs to pay for the apartment years after I bought the still unfurnished house; and years, nay, decades later I still have credit card debt from this one lone, perhaps impulsive decision.

You can not top me when it comes to thinking the worst! I’m willing to bet money on that. It’s this constant turning over of ideas about the worst case scenario that drives me nuts, each repetition containing more ruin and humiliation. I’m aware of these thoughts, don’t get me wrong. I stop them. I breath. I even laugh at them because they’re so completely ridiculous. Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome. Seriously? For crying out loud Tina Turner was in that.

But then I come back to the choices I’m making and I start to question them. Why do I want this house? Why now? There will be other houses for sale in a year, maybe even a $8000 tax credit as well. Why can’t I just wait?

And here’s what I answer: For the first time in my life I want to call a place home. That’s groundbreaking. And on the last day of my 10 Day Option Period, that’s what’s making me go forward with buying my dream house.

home, finally September 15, 2009

25 days ago I moved into this house, a rental in the perfect location, lots of space and windows and hardwood floors, a place to practice. It was exactly what I wanted.

25 days later I’ve found a house I want to buy, nowhere near here, with smallish rooms but a righteous kitchen. It’s exactly what I didn’t know I wanted.

The house I’m in now is an old house with great bones, but I can’t make it mine. I kept thinking if I owned this place there’s so much I could do with it. I could turn it into something great. I’ve been carrying a paint color card (soothing green tea) for weeks, even though I know I can’t paint. It’s in the lease.

This move never felt right. I saved every box and piece of bubble wrap and I didn’t unpack everything. And what I did unpack I didn’t necessarily put up. I kept waiting. I’ll wait until I’ve cleaned everything. I’ll wait until I’ve lined all the shelves. I’ll wait until pest control comes. I’ll wait until the weekend, no not that one, the holiday weekend, the next one, yeah, that one.  I knew I wasn’t staying.

This house needs someone to love it.  The back room, where I’m writing this, is spacious with windows on three sides. It’s the perfect place for practice: meditation, yoga, writing. But it’s not for me.

I’m not buying because it’s a good investment or a buyer’s market. I’m buying because I want a home of my own. Because that place I can make mine. No in-between place. Something to paint any color I want, even soothing green tea. I think I’ve found home, finally.

Asking permission September 6, 2009

Right now, in this moment, my life seems full of things I don’t want to deal with. That’s been the past couple of weeks. In a new place, still putting away the pieces of my life, but not seeing a whole, never seeing the whole. Each piece I put up still has a thin coating of regret and disappointment I can’t seem to wipe off:  I know this won’t bring me the life I want, I wish I had the life to use this more, I think I made a mistake.

The other day at the end of the yoga class I teach at work, my young colleague asked if I was teaching anywhere else. I’m not. I talked in circles about how I just hadn’t gotten around to it, blah blah blah. And then she said this: “Well if you really wanted to do this you’d be doing it. Right?”  I nodded my head because the affirmative was the only logical response to that question.

Let’s discover a passion! And then do everything to hide that passion, make it contingent on some other factor, make it a footnote in life instead of the major text. That’s the type of person I am. My desire for something automatically makes it off limits, unattainable.

I should at least ask, right? Honestly, what’s the worse that can happen?  “No. Who do you think you are? You can’t have this. What made you even ask? You’re so obviously not good enough!” All said in a look, or the avoidance of a look, thus confirming my lifelong suspicions.  Yes, I know this is insane. I know I can’t possibly know all of that. I know I can’t read minds. And I know I’m making assumptions, but… I am a self help addict after all and this is how we think. If I didn’t think like this I probably wouldn’t need to read all these books.

So how should I think instead? So I can step away from the fully loaded Kindle? I think I may have the whole asking-for-what-I-want thing backwards. I think I need to ask others to give me something, a job, love, joy. Instead I need to ask myself for more, ask myself for what I want, give myself permission.

Let me just say off the bat that this theory is wrong. Why?  The whole idea of asking for permission, for approval, is based on someone else – who knows more, has more, frankly is just better – giving it. That’s not me. Or is it? Maybe I know more, have more and am better than I believe. Maybe the first step is asking myself for permission – and giving it – before I go into the world and ask for anything.

That’s an interesting idea.

the old place September 2, 2009

I’m in a new place now, a new house, duplex, apartment whatever you want to call it.  It’s been two weeks of limbo, settled no where, when the new place still feels foreign and unknown, but the old place is missing every major element except the feeling that it’s home.

I loved my old place. It was a perfect apartment. Bright, shiny, new. Every convenience. Fireplace, balcony with a view of sky, ridiculous bathroom and closets. When I moved there I was coming off some of the best years of my life, the most fun years maybe I should say, finally in my late 30s having fun, and I thought that apartment would be the icing on the cake. But almost as soon as I moved in all the fun ended. I was sick while I lived there. Symptoms and surgeries and procedures and worrying. Allergies causing true illness instead of just annoyance or discomfort. How many times did my mother come from Florida to take care of me? But I was never sick in a way that truly threatened my life. I was sick in a way that woke me up.

I could never hate the old place, that onetime home of mine, because that’s where I lived when I found yoga. After all those self help books, all those years of reading one after another, feeling the fear and still not doing it anyway, focusing on the second chakra when it was the third all along, not loving anything that is and taking everything personally, becoming aware of some things but not others, and doing mostly nothing about either, yoga brought it all together.

In the bright, shiny, new, old place I listened to my own voice more than at any other time in my life. Listened to the truth of it no matter what it said, no matter the consequences. That doesn’t always mean I always did the right thing or the best thing or the brave thing, but at least I could listen even though I was afraid, terrified.  I heard what I am, not what I’m becoming or what I want to be, but what I am. Now I just have to admit it, say it, be honest about it.  Maybe I can do that in the new place.

Morning Person August 14, 2009

Why am I not writing? Well obviously I’m writing; I’m writing this. But why am I not writing the self help addicts book? I haven’t been working on it lately; the work i’s sporadic and I can’t for the life of me seem to post the reviews of the three books I’ve chosen for the sample chapter. I don’t know why. Well… maybe I do. Fear is probably in the mix. Writing then taking it apart and re-writing. Again and again. The idea of it is daunting, but I don’t want to get this far and then put it down again, and wait another two years to work on it, again.

About six months ago I started to get up at 5:30 to write a novel because I read Walter Mosley’s book, This Year You Write Your Novel. Have you ever read a book that made something seem imminently doable? This is the book. I’ve read writing books before, most of them self help books, but this one was so slim, so direct, that each sentence seemed undeniable. Write every day. Every Day. At least an hour and a half.

When I read that I knew that the only way I could do it was to get up at 5:30am, get some coffee and set a timer for 90 minutes. And that’s what I did. At first it seemed incredibly early, I had to drag myself out of bed. But then the coffee would taste good, and I would write something, the shitty first draft stuff, just basically venting about whatever, but giving people different names and changing their hair color.  I got up every morning without fail and wrote.

A couple of months ago the writing changed so I could finish up the self help addicts book that I had abandoned for two years, but I figured the same rules applied: get up every morning and write.  Now, I’ve let the writing go.

But I still get up early, my eyes still open at about 5:20 in anticipation of starting a new day, even when my mind just wants to hunker down and stay in bed for whatever reason it can think of. Then I make promises to myself. Well I’ll get up now, but I have to meditate and practice yoga or I have to write a post for the blog. This morning I stayed in bed but I clearly wanted to write because I grabbed my journal, leaning on my left, using my arm as a pillow and writing parts of what you just read, writing like I did for years without editing, just the shitty first drafts.

High School September 29, 2008

How did I get here?

There are days at work when I can’t stop asking myself that question. How did I get here? And then I think “I didn’t know where I was when I started and I didn’t have a specific place I wanted to go.”

It’s an incredibly lame answer when one considers that I simply hate my job. I hate the high school-ness of it. The being here between a certain number of hours and being at your desk looking busy. Sure I get to talk to my friends and we talk about the work we have to get done and people we don’t like. And I can decorate my locker (cubicle) anyway I want. It’s sooo high school.

Now that I’ve said all this, what does it mean for me? What step should I take? I’m playing a waiting game until after the test Thursday. What will I hear when I wake up? If I’m going to die, I know exactly what I’ll do. If I’m going to live…What next?

I felt the same way when I came back from my surfing vacation in Mexico. What happened next? Nothing. I wrote a post and went back to the life I’d taken a vacation from. I try to be thankful for this job (after all it payed for the vacation), and sometimes I can make myself believe it. But I’ve been there for over 5 years, and I’ve wanted out of for about four. What does that say about me?

I don’t leave it because I’ve got it in my head that: nothing else would be any better; there’s bullshit wherever you go; I’d never find another job making as much money with my kind of vague, though solid, skills; there are much worse bosses out there; the people I like here are good friends, etc, etc and a cashmere sweater.  I don’t even try anymore. I’m just thankful for the insurance and the sick leave.  Is that not sad? Yes it is sad. I’m worth more right?

Now that I think about it, in the 5 years I’ve had this job I’ve had 4 medical procedures requiring going to, if not staying in, the hospital. Before that, as an adult? 0. My god, I think my job is literally making me sick! Maybe it’s just an age thing? Maybe I’m just going through a rough patch. But if I subscribe to the notion that everything happens for a reason, I have to admit, it’s a little strange.

change space September 29, 2008

How many books talk about change being hard, the most difficult thing to do. People have habits, ruts, patterns they can’t seem to escape, half of which we don’t even realize we have. Yogis and Buddhists tell us about samskaras, those actions we do over and over again. Scientists who study the brain tell us about neurological patterns that develop and link our thoughts to actions, creating actual grooves in the brain that get deeper and deeper the longer we stay in these patterns. This makes real change almost impossible, right?

What if change isn’t hard?

People talk about changing all the time, for years, for decades. But the actual change I think happens in a second, almost instantaneously. Suddenly, I think one thing and respond in a certain way, and then the next second I respond in some other way. It’s not a process; it’s the opposite of process. It’s not a series of steps or actions. It’s just one step, one action, from doing something to not doing it.

My yoga teacher talks about the madhya (not sure how it’s spelled) in pranayama, that point in breathing when you change from inhaling to exhaling. I think Deepak Chopra calls it a “gap”.  It’s a still point, a space.  This change space that’s neither inhaling nor exhaling, but one changing into the other. I’ve said before, I feel like I’ve changed so much in the last couple of years (and I have), but the externals look the same.  Am I in the change space? How long can I stay in the change space before I lose my breath? How long can I wait to exhale?

the plan September 27, 2008

Here’s the situation. I saw blood in my stool and I have to have a colonoscopy. My doctor was all, “We have to take a look, colon cancer is SOOOO common, it’s the #1 cause of cancer death! We’re #1! We’re #1!” He didn’t say that last part, but it felt like he could have.  Apparently, if you catch colon cancer early, you’re fine, but after a certain point there’s absolutely nothing they can do for you and you die in, like, six months. Do not Google it.

When faced with a health concern I always go to the darkest place. What if it’s cancer? What if I wake from the drugs Thursday, he says “It’s too late. There’s nothing we can do. You’ve got about 6 months to live”? I was thinking about it so much that I came up with a plan. I know exactly what I would do.

I’d cut back my hours at work, but not so much that I would lose my insurance. The idea of sitting in a cubicle watching the minutes of the rest of my life literally ticking away would no longer be acceptable. I’ve got a little saved, I could still make the rent. I’d go to yoga at least once a day, sometimes during the day when I’d ordinarily be at work. I’d sell everything and when my lease is up in January, move back to Florida with my mom and sister. I’d spend the last few months of my life surfing, working part-time somewhere, volunteer teaching yoga, meditating, writing. I’d help my mom around the house, start a garden for her. Just taking and giving joy in everything I did. And then I’d die. That’s The Dieing Plan.

As I got dressed for yoga this morning I was thinking about The Plan and it made me smile, it made me happy to think of living my life like that, of my dieing plan. And then driving to the yoga studio it hit me, I don’t have a Living Plan.

I seem to be perfectly willing to let the minutes of my life tick away in front of computer and not do the things I clearly want to do. I don’t do any of the things in my dying plan. Yes I go to yoga, and I was even going almost everyday during teacher training, but not since. Work saps my energy. I don’t garden. I haven’t started volunteering, yet. There are no waves to catch in Austin, and if you look at the dates on this blog you know I’m not writing. I’m certainly not taking and giving joy in everything I do.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve known for a while now that I have no plans for my life, no career goals, no relationship goals, there’s no overarching theme. I just sort of go from one thing to the next and if I stay in one place a while it’s usually not because I love it but because I’m stuck. I started to think, “do I want to die, so I can have that life?”  When (kinda) faced with death, I happily made a plan for myself that brought a smile to my face, almost a wish that I could live it even though it would require a death sentence. What does that say about how I really want to live my life, and the way I’m living it now?

The doctor said that 8 times out of 10 there’s nothing seriously wrong. Wait. That means 1 in 5 is serious. Those odds aren’t good, that’s a lot! Anyway…

When I wake up Thursday, if the doctor says “You’re fine! False alarm. See you in 10 years. Bye now!”, what the fuck is my Living Plan?