Freeing up ties

It's the Extra Day of February, and I'm nursing a crummy cold but looking out our window here in Laguna over a brilliant blue ocean and waving eucalyptus and palm trees. And making lists -- Go, Keep, Save, Sell, Donate.

I've always admired people like our 2019 managers Dina & Ralph who can live spontaneously, who are open to new possibilities and don't overthink taking advantage of what might be a life-changing opportunity. People who don't take roots too seriously because they know they can always grow new ones and entwine themselves in new soil. They trust in themselves at a level that I've always believed surpasses mine.

But nope; I'm a Capricorn, one of those who worry and plan and weigh the odds before making big decisions. So when, shortly after we decided to put the B&B on the market, the opportunity to secure an apartment in the neighborhood we loved came up, I thought we were Working the Plan: Sell the house in New York, move back to California. Start the next chapter of our lives. We jumped at the chance and signed a year-round lease.

That was four years ago.

But "the Plan" isn't something that is always under our control, certainly not when real estate is involved. Rather, looking back, what I was doing was trying to live the dream and hoping it would eventually pay off.

Last year, as I've written before, we did get to enjoy the place for nearly a full year -- a wonderful opportunity we engineered by hiring Dina and Ralph for the season.

But now we're going back to reality. Having recommitted ourselves to our work and our business after our summer away last year, we can no longer ignore the glaring money-suck that a year-round rental entails when we can only occupy it a couple of months a year. So shortly after our arrival in January this year, we made the painful decision to give up our funky, wonderful year-round apartment in a Castle on a Hill.

It feels a lot like losing. I've consolidated a lot of my books and artwork and history and shipped it to what I thought would be my next home, and now that stuff will go into storage to await the future, whenever or wherever that may be. It's a ridiculous form of grief, but I recognize that I am, in fact, grieving the loss of the little nest I was attempting to feather. Of the next chapter of life I was planning to start writing.

But the reason we can walk away now is precisely that: I don't have that next life planned. It isn't the right time.

All is not lost; on the contrary, we've re-secured the vacation rental we were happy in for thirteen years before the Castle. It isn't ours, and it isn't permanent. But maybe it's another lesson I needed to learn. Freeing ourselves from a property we aren't yet in a position to enjoy more will free up a lot of other things, not just financially, but mentally and emotionally. I am trusting in the process that this may include being able to be more spontaneous and ready to jump when a future opportunity presents itself.

And part of the process is seeing that maybe the Plan is like water. Where I was trying to define and contain it as if it were an ice cube, water's nature is to melt and spread and go places.

So let me melt, find my current, and go where I'm meant to go.