The Invictus Writers will meet for the first time this Saturday, which means it’s time to clean my house after months of travel.
Normally cleaning isn’t an issue. I like an orderly house. (Thanks mom.) But somehow this time it feels different. It feels like the beginning of the last cleaning. Not that I won’t be doing this again some day. Certainly I will. It’s just this feels like one of those Big Ends.
Even this one, though, feels different than the other ends: High School Graduation. College Graduation. Leaving Cincinnati. Leaving Austin. Leaving San Francisco. Those all had a physical component to them. A move. A leave behind.
This one is more philosophical. More ethereal. Brad@40 is starting to feel more real with every passing moment.
Because I’m clearing the decks. Washing away the past and getting myself ready for what comes next.
***
I called Andy the other day to discuss selling the house in Austin. I’d been dreading the phone call because I didn’t know where he’d stand on the move. After all, part of the reason I bought the house was so that he’d have a place to stay in Austin without all the hassles of renting.
Of course, my plan was to live there myself. Work didn’t allow that to happen. (Or, I allowed work to take me away from Austin.) When I moved, it never crossed my mind to sell the place because Andy was there and I could always come visit.
The thought of selling the house saddens me, but what concerned me most was that my decision would hurt our friendship. While I’ve given him part ownership for all the work he’s put into the house, I didn’t know if he was ready to move.
Fortunately, he was.
Like me, he’s looking forward to what’s next in his life. He wants to find the next adventure. He wants to go live his life and the house had tied him down as well.
Now, we have 18 months to fix the place up and get everything in order so we can sell it. Then we’ll take that money – more money than either of us ever expected to have at one time – and go. Surely in opposite directions, but never so far that we won’t be connected.
I’ve known him for 15 years. We’ve lived together – or connected – for 12 of those years. For better or worse, we’re brothers now.
And the adventures are about to begin.
***
I came across a letter that a woman wrote to me last year. We had a brief, passionate (yes strangely innocent), relationship when I first moved here. We just connected right off the bat in the way that sometimes you click with people.
We found ourselves, unknowingly, spending much of our waking time together. It being summer, we lounged around outside, reading books, discussing literature, talking writing, politics, religion. We watched movies. We made dinner.
It was magnetic really, a force of nature that swept us along quickly.
There were – as there always are – some issues. But the biggest issue was that she is a woman of faith, and I’m a man of science. As we barreled into what appeared to be a relationship, we smashed into that brick wall. Or rather I did. She slammed on the brakes without telling me.
One day while sitting on my couch, she simply stood up and walked out the door. Without a word.
I sat up (we had been napping), unsure of what just happened but instantly sure that whatever I thought was happening was not.
In my younger years, I would have chased after her. Or called her. Or asked for some explanation. But I’d like to think I’ve learned a bit. I knew whatever was troubling her wasn’t mine to have so I went about my day. The only thing I asked her – a few days later when we spoke – was for some resolution so that I could put this behind me.
She did what we had done. She wrote me a long letter, explaining what was going through her head. If you weren’t the subject, you’d find the letter to be lovely. But I was and I don’t. It reads as giving up. As running away. As failure in the worst sense, the kind that comes from not trying.
I kept that letter for a year, wishing that somehow time would reverse itself and remove the moments where the thing was broken. But of course that’s impossible. It was – and is – broken.
There are other notes and letters here, things I’ve collected in the last 2 1/2 years of my sobriety. Letters that were well-meaning but pierced my heart. I’ve gathered all of those up tonight and placed the letter in the trash, tied the bag and took it out to the curb.
The transition is over, I think. It’s time for spring cleaning.
***
I started looking at condos in Indianapolis.
I don’t know why. I’m not sure this is my home just yet, but I’m open to putting down the roots that I’ve avoided for so long. Ball State feels ever more like a home. Maybe my home.
There’s a comfort here that I can’t describe. Maybe this is what normal people have felt most of their lives. If so, that’s just another thing I’ve lost to alcohol. Which is okay. Because today, sitting in my dirty apartment, I appreciate the fact that this is my home. That I have a place. That I exist here.
If I stay, though, I won’t be living in Muncie. I’ll have to find a place a bit closer to the city (but maybe not quite in the city). Someplace between here and there, which is where I fit in best anyway.
***
I met someone.
Well, I met them in the way that you would expect that I would meet someone, which is to say that I haven’t actually met them in real life. But that is coming. Soon. You won’t hear much about it (despite the amazing interest according to the blog stats) in specific because I’ve always tried to keep other folks out of my blog. It’s not right to out them, and more importantly, there are parts of my life that I want to be just mine.
Still, I bring it up because she’s so far been fun and funny and smart. We’ve done what you’d expect: email, text and phone calls. We’ve cleared the big hurdles: I’m not a Neo-con, The Jesus won’t be bothering us, we both like kids and animals.
I wish I was kidding, but I’ve learned that those three things are pre-requisites for any kind of relationship with me. This is good to know, but surprisingly hard to find.
Regardless of where it goes – and I’ve said this before – it’s just good to be open to this again. To return to the land of the living. To have (as I tell my students) the greatest opportunity in the world: to fail mightily and epically on the off chace that you don’t.
***
I don’t know how all of this – the house, the condo, the writing, the job, the dating – plays out. And that feels amazing. It’s low impact. Friction-less.
Because of that, the abyss seems farther away tonight, off in a distant corner of the future. The world feels clean again. New. Ripe.
And these movements – the small ones, the sad ones, the exciting ones – added together create momentum. Excitement.
They create life.
They create what’s next.
