Sometimes I miss my bed, my kitchen, my things just so (organized), my altar, my crystals, being able to take a bath any time I want, a shower any time I want, my desk, sleeping in my own bed, the familiarity of days and places, that feeling of finally being home after a long day out and getting cozy on my couch.
I don’t miss the monotony of days, the commutes to work that were sometimes an hour each way, the feeling that life was passing by too fast, loud neighbors upstairs, office cubicles, lack of sunlight, feeling like I wasn’t where I was supposed to be.
Maybe everyone feels at odds with themselves in their own way. I feel contradictory by my very nature, and one of my most extreme dissonances is my absolute love for being on the road clashing with my love for having my own little home, wherever it might be—just a space that offers a refuge from the rest of the world and its figurative and literal noise. How do you balance externally these things that are at odds with one another internally? I am passionate about both modes of being in the world. Both bring me complete joy and bring me back to myself.
I’m feeling the tension between the two play itself out as I move deeper into this time on the road, and especially more recently, after learning that the home base I’d planned on going back to might be gone before I get there. That changes things.
Most of the time, I’ve been feeling calm, genuinely healthy, free, and alive, and these thoughts are just minor stressors in the background—little, tiny gnawing things, annoying like gnats but not particularly destructive. But occasionally still, I get those cascading waves of anxiety—about not having a home, what the fuck I think I’m doing, where I’ll end up, how I’ll survive—and I become overwrought with that “just flying (too) free” feeling.
“One day at a time” is quite a bit over-used, but the mantra has held truth in the most spiritually practical ways for me. “One day at a time,” or ideally one present moment at a time, is the way the universe works. It’s how things actually unfold, and it’s how you can really dig in and listen to and trust yourself and let your faith, your heart, and your intuition be your compass.
I continue to trust that inner knowing—the one that’s been telling me I need to be here. I believe it with every fiber of my being. I have no idea how it will all play out, and that scares the hell out of me sometimes. But it feels like I’ve been creating new circuitry in my mind and heart over these past 10 months, ever since I got the rug pulled out from underneath me, the day I was told I was being let go from my full-time employer. It feels like both an unraveling and a complete restructuring of my belief system and how I live and make choices. I’m still finding my footing, and it’s easy to slip back into the old recesses of worry and doubt and stress about security and the future and things like not having health insurance—all my old patterns of belief that got so ingrained in me over the years. But like overcoming any addiction (or any long-term, routine way of thinking or believing or doing things), it gets easier with time. I’m noticing it. I’m falling back into the dark less and less, and most days, I feel like I stand taller, facing the sun.